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In Amanda Seales‘s latest Small Doses podcast, the “Side Effects of Being a Boss” episode, she talked with friend and Insecure creator Issa Rae about being a Black woman in charge, trying to find balance, and dealing with being seen as difficult. Before the women delved in deep about that topic though, they caught up with one another about how they’d been coping with the coronavirus pandemic. While Issa still seems to be in Los Angeles doing her quarantining, Amanda flew down to her hometown of Orlando to be with her mom early on.
While running an errand in a local Target, the 38-year-old star, decked in gloves and a face mask, said she surprisingly got into it with another shopper over the woman not maintaining that six feet we’re all supposed to be keeping from each other when outside to avoid passing the virus. Amanda and Issa lamented, in their comical way of course, the fact that some people just don’t get it.
“There’s no polite way to create distance and I think that’s what I get frustrated with,” Amanda said. “I don’t want to have to do that, but then I was at a Target and this woman was like standing so close to me. I was like, ‘Ma’am, can you please give me some space?’ She was like, ‘You got a ruler? You got a ruler?’ I was like, ‘I have a mask and gloves. As you can see, I’m not about this life.’ She was like, ‘I should spit on you!’ It escalated so quickly. My homegirl was on FaceTime like, ‘Yooooooo!'”
When Issa said the woman was going to mess around and end up getting the virus due to her behavior, Amanda shared that the individual literally had a chest tube in, so one would think she would want to take better precautions for her own health since the virus is one that impacts the respiratory tract.
“She had a chest tube in and literally was like, ‘You could give it to me! You could give it to me!’ I was like, ‘Yo! Why are you playing with your life?'”
That only made the woman more upset, which, in turn, made Amanda even more angry.
“Then she leveled up. You know me. I have a point,” she said. “I definitely was like, ‘B—h, I wish you would spit on me!’ Then she said, ‘I should shank you.’ We’re in an aisle and that’s when I yelled, ‘So you’re going to shank me in the Target!?’ Her husband is standing there, I was like, ‘Yo, get your wife! Get your wife!’ Then they came over and escorted her out. She was trying to fight me. She was the size of — to my shoulder. She was really trying to fight me. I’m like, ‘Ma’am.’ She’s like, ‘Oh you scared now?’ I was like, ‘I was scared before! I didn’t want you close to me before.'”
The incident wasn’t allowed to escalate any further though because of the Target employees. According to the star, workers shared that such wild encounters were becoming more common in the store due to the pandemic.
“What was trippy was how well they responded, the people at Target, because this keeps happening,” she said. “Because of the anxiety.”
All sorts of mayhem has definitely taken place over the last few weeks at stores not only in the U.S. but also abroad due to people struggling with those who won’t socially distance. There’s been a fight in a U.K. supermarket, a brawl in San Francisco as well as one in Houston at a 99 cent store, and a fight in a social distancing line in Miami, among many others. It is true that anxiety has crept in for a lot of people, causing chaos. Thankfully, Amanda was able to avoid a truly violent situation, because people really are on edge right now.
