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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Too not move in this cafe.

263 replies

toobreathless · 15/10/2011 20:33

First post in AIBU, just curious to hear what others think.

Had a lovely day wondering around a pretty local town. Time came to feed DD, who was getting a bit noisy. Went into the nearest cafe (there are about six) & sat down at a table to feed DD while DH got in the queue for drinks.

Had DD firmly attached when two ladies approached (in their 50s?). I was sat at a table for two. One said to me 'you will have to move we have already bought our drinks & have nowhere to sit.' Stunned, I looked up & realised this was true. I wasn't the only one 'saving' a table.

I politely suggested the ask the gentleman sat alone at a table of four if they could share. They gave me evil stares & swept off.

I feel a bit mean now. Was I BU?

OP posts:
ShriekingLisa · 15/10/2011 23:38

YANBU.
I would have said
'My baby is feeding, my husband is buying my a drink, ask someone else to move'

Silly old hags.

Sevenfoldedbloodybodies · 15/10/2011 23:40

so over 50 makes you an old hag.....
what a pile of crap

effingwotnots · 15/10/2011 23:41

No, being an inconsiderate miserable witch makes you a hag.

ilovesooty · 15/10/2011 23:44

So why the "old" then?

Sossiges · 15/10/2011 23:46

OP YANBU

Sevenfoldedbloodybodies · 15/10/2011 23:48

ok so being agist is ok
but disagreeing with a BF op isn't
weird

ilovesooty · 15/10/2011 23:50

Being ageist appears to be the only prejudice which is consistently acceptable. I've lost count of the number of posts I've read referring to "old hags", "old biddies" etc.

MrsRetchingBloodAndGuts · 15/10/2011 23:51

If I was the op I wouldn't have moved even if I WASN'T bf. There is no 'law' about this so hey ho.

YANBU

EggyAllenPoe · 15/10/2011 23:55

save table first, then queue. silly to do otherwise, or you may find you have no table when you get your order.

so TWBU

I expect this thread has moved on from this though..(on first page)

LadyEvilEyes · 15/10/2011 23:59

I'm happy and confident in the fact that my 55 year old self has had a rather interesting life so far,
I would have felt way too cool to go on a website in my 20's and whine about breastfeeding in cafes,
I was travelling around India at 25, on my own, and then living in Amsterdam where I worked as a topless waitress having hitched all around Europe from 17 onwards, Grin
You young hags are soooo boring,
BF in public while sitting at a table and not queueing...
You really are a bunch of rebels Grin

Goldenbear · 16/10/2011 00:01

Yes but shelleybobs she was a paying customer, she just happened to sort out her seating arrangements first. Besides, even if she wasn't a paying customer it is still very mean to stop a baby from feeding, indeed prioritising one's own greedy adult need for food/drink over a baby's need is morally distasteful to most I would imagine but going on this thread maybe (depressingly) not!

Sevenfoldedbloodybodies · 16/10/2011 00:03

LadyEvilEyes can you and me be mates, I love your style, we can show these youngsters how it is [hgrin]

Goldenbear · 16/10/2011 00:05

Goodness ladyevileyes what an exciting life you have lead?

ShellyBoobs · 16/10/2011 00:06

...prioritising one's own greedy adult need...

WTF is 'greedy' about wanting to consume items purchased in a cafe?

You're just being ridiculous now.

Goodnight.

jellybeans · 16/10/2011 00:07

Not read whole thread (thankfully by the look of some of it!) but I think YANBU if you were bf. I bf myself and know how hard it can be at times. I do usually find a table first while other person orders too-it is usual where I live and not seen as rude by most people. Otherwise it would be a waste of food/drink if we couldn't sit and eat it after we bought it. I am happy to move though if nearly finished and someone needs a seat and also happy to share empty seats at our table. I can see it is annoying if you can't get a seat though.

Goldenbear · 16/10/2011 00:07

Did they even have websites to go on when you were 25?

MillyR · 16/10/2011 00:08

Whether people think customers should sit at tables or not before they order food does not really matter.

Whether or not the OP was breastfeeding or bottle feeding does not really matter.

A baby was hungry and needed to be fed, so the OP sat down to feed her baby. Some other people needed to sit down; many people were taken up tables that they needed less than the OP did at that exact moment. Obviously those women should have asked somebody else to move, or ideally somebody else should have offered to move.

If we give the women the benefit of the doubt, they perhaps did not realise a baby was being fed, and if they had they would have asked someone else.

If we don't give them the benefit of the doubt, then they deliberately asked a mother feeding a baby because they wanted to pick an easy target who would experience more inconvenience than other people who would have found it easier to move.

Well done to the OP for finding them alternative seating so they couldn't complain. The evil stares afterwards suggest they were more concerned with making you move to make some kind of point than being concerned about actually sitting down.

This whole British thing of treating everyday situations as if we are trying to get a lifeboat on the Titanic is ridiculous anyway.

LadyEvilEyes · 16/10/2011 00:09

We really need to start an old hags quiche, don't we sevenGrin

lovecat · 16/10/2011 00:20

The women were rude demanding that the OP move, but what has moved me to respond on this thread is the weird, weird statements from more than one poster along the lines of

'these silly people who queue for food and drinks when all the tables are taken, what are they thinking of?'

Because it doesn't work like that.

I would go into our M&S cafe with DD when she was still in her pushchair, so I couldn't and wouldn't dream of leaving her at a table to 'save' a space.

As I went in, I would suss out the available seating. Generally there would be several tables available.

However, as the queue lengthened, people who had come in behind me in groups would go and plonk some of their party in the once-available tables, so by the time I'd passed through the byzantine ordering system and got to the till with DD, there were no tables free because they all had a hogger sitting at them.

So what do you do then? Is that my silly fault, for daring to venture out with a child and want to eat whilst out? Should I have heaved a sigh at my own irresponsibility and abandoned my lunch/coffee?

What I tended to do (whilst raging inwardly at their selfishness) was ask politely if I could sit at a table for four with one person (with no food/drinks) there. If they said no because they were saving it for others, I would, if feeling up to it, point out that there was a sign asking customers to get their food before finding a seat. Other times, if someone had been mad enough to leave bags there to 'claim' a table, I would move them. If they tried to argue the toss with me I would again point to the sign. I obviously look more scary than I think I do, because most people accepted I was in the right!

However, OP, I don't think in your particular case, you were in the wrong. There's no excuse for rudeness.

Sevenfoldedbloodybodies · 16/10/2011 00:22

LadyEvilEyes we do, but not old hags please. just because the children on this thread deem people over 50 to be old, we know better, so young hags please. cos we know [hwink]

RustyBear · 16/10/2011 00:24

Can I sign up to the young hags?

LadyEvilEyes · 16/10/2011 00:25

Websites when I was 25??
What is this new fangled thing you are talking about?
No we had phone boxes young lady,
And LPs. And when I was a teen, the charts on a Sunday evening which I would tape with one of them there yon tape recorders.
Ahh those were the days.

Oooh my back.

Sevenfoldedbloodybodies · 16/10/2011 00:28

LadyEvilEyes we need that thread.
we can talk about tiger feet and that dance.
wimpy and the weird shaped burgers
hitch hiking
gin and cider.......oops

RustyBear · 16/10/2011 00:32

Ooh, Wimpy - do you remember the Brown Derby?

Sevenfoldedbloodybodies · 16/10/2011 00:34

I do lol