Woman at kids swimming had a go at me!!

[marymary91]

Hi, I just wanted some thoughts on something that happened to me when taking the children to their weekly swimming class at the leisure centre. Last week we walked in and found a quarter of the bench had someone's belongings laid out unattended and then a large gap in between and a cardigan on the end of that gap. There were still 10 minutes until my sons lesson was due to begin so me and my 3 children sat down in the empty space not realising someone had got up and gone into the changing room. Fast forward a few minutes and the mum returned and proceeded to angrily grab her cardigan from the end of where my children were sat and then came upto me and rudely said "can you move" No please, no smile, nothing. Not being confrontational I told the kids to budge up even though I did think she could have moved some of her belongings around or put them into her lap as her son's lessons was ending. She then sat down with so much force so close to me we were hip to hip. I couldn't move up any more as someone else was now sitting on the other end so I put my youngest on my lap to make some more room and get away from her 😫 I told dh when I got home what happened and he was less than impressed by her attitude 🙄 So today was the next lesson and dh came along too as he was off work so he took the younger 2 kids in to the pool while I took older son to get changed. I came out to discover he was sitting next to the woman from last week (her belongings spread over a large section of the bench again!) There was a space next to my dh for me to sit but as I approached I saw an almost empty water bottle next to him so I waited to see if she would move it which I assumed she would if it was hers but she completely ignored me and was looking straight ahead as I awkwardly stood in front of them so I just slid it across towards the lady and sat next to dh. It would be an understatement to say she had the overreaction of the bloody century! She got SO angry and was barking at me how dare you touch my stuff thats so rude of you. I was so genuinely shocked at her reaction I was thinking of the quickest way to diffuse the situation so just said "I didn't know it was yours" and looked the other way. But no, that was not what she wanted to hear she started on dh and boy did she pick the wrong person to have a go at. She was speaking about me as if I wasn't there and telling him "why is she so rude she needs to apologise to me for touching my stuff!" "I can't even drink this now it's useless to me how do I know if she just went to the toilet?!" That was very insulting considering she pretty much just accused me of not washing my hands after going to the loo 🤨 Dh gave as good as he got and I had to intervene to tell him to leave it as it was clearly pointless and she just has a stick up her butt about something and has been taking it out on me for no reason at all. How should I deal with this lady when I bump into her again next week?! I was considering putting a complaint in to reception but I don't want to cause any unnecessary problems if our children's classes are one after another and we're bound to see each other regularly 😩😭

Sit on her knee.

She's clearly bonkers. I'd have a word with the management, as she's obviously a regular.

^ This. The fact that she is causing upsetting scenes by shouting and swearing at you for trying to sit down on the one place you are meant to sit is most definitely something staff need to deal with.
Speak to them on your way in. Tell them that a swim class parent is acting aggressively and stopping people being able to take a seat and you would like it stopped.

And if nothing happens, sit on her stuff or sweep it onto the floor with your arm! (Well you wouldn't want to touch them with your unwashed urine soaked hands would you?)

If her stuff is unattended, hand it into reception, informing them someone has left their things. Then inform her you are sitting there and to go see management if she has a problem with someone using the bench to actually sit on.
If she starts, report her shit to reception, and advise them you area not there to be abused by this bitch a stranger.

They have a duty of care within their building, and if they she's going apeshit, they should be asking her to leave.

I'd be so tempted to grab all her stuff and chuck it in the pool. I wouldn't do it, but I'd be tempted.

Fake-sneeze on her stuff and then wipe your nose on her cardigan.

We have a big unisex changing room at our local pool. Loads of cubicles and yet nowhere to change thanks to rude parents leaving their piles of clothing in the cubicles while their crotch goblins swim.

The staff try to tell them. Every damn week. There are notices everywhere too. So now, some of us sufficiently annoyed customers gather up the stuff and put them in the lockers, usually at the opposite ends of the room to the cubicle it was left in. They do try to complain when they have to search for 10 minutes to find their belongings but staff just tell them that they know they're not supposed to leave the stuff in cubicles and they're lucky their belongings haven't ended up in a pile on the wet floor. The lockers are free!

Good luck getting this dealt with OP.