I took DS to a small soft play today that only has 4 tables in the actual soft play area. There are more tables just outside the door that parents will sit at when the other tables are full.
When we arrived, I got the last free table. There was a younger woman who was in the soft play with her children and she had quite a bit of stuff on her table (coats, shoes, baby bag etc) and a pushchair for her baby next to the table.
Quite a few kids came in and their parents sat outside at the other tables. Then 2 women came in with a tray of food and coffees and they went straight to the young woman's table and moved all of her stuff into a chair and into her pushchair. I assumed they knew her until one turned around and asked me how many people were sitting there. I said I wasn't sure and pointed out the woman whose table it was. They didn't even look at her and just sat down and spread their food and drinks out.
A few minutes later the woman came back to her table and she stopped and stared at them for a minute then walked up to her table and just kinda looked at them and looked at all her stuff that had been piled into the chair and pushchair. The women looked at her and one said "we needed somewhere to sit" and gave her this shitty smile...almost like she was bemused? Then the women just kept talking like nothing had happened.
I was gobsmacked! Am I crazy or were those women awful? They didn't even apologise or have the decency to look embarrassed. They acted like they had done nothing wrong. It seemed so rude and entitled.
Am I missing something? Is there some unspoken rule that you can steal peoples tables if they aren't sitting there when you walk in?