to have wanted to move tables in this restaurant?

[FairhairedandFrustrated]

Wednesday is my day off, DH had the day off too so decided as our DC were both at school, we would treat ourselves to lunch in our very favourite place.

So we were there as soon as the lunch 'sitting' started and ordered our meal... the tables are quite close together (only drawback but the food is amazing) and they fill up pretty quickly.

A couple with a little girl came in and were seated at the table beside us (If you can picture, one side of the seats is all the one, like a long sofa against a wall) that's the side I was sitting on.

So the woman and the young girl sat on that side of their table, with the young girl beside me. She was about 5 or 6 (school age). The woman kept asking her if she was OK and rubbing & patting her back..

I was listening when their order was being taken and the woman told the waiter she had a chest infection and was off school.

BUT, the little one coughed and spluttered and coughed and cleared her throat and coughed and climbed right up beside me on the bunker/sofa seat and coughed.... right into my face/plate etc. I didn's say a thing, but I put my knife and fork down and turned my face right to look at her parents. I looked around for an empty table, but this is a popular place in a seaside town and busy all yr round, so none available!

If my child was ill I would have kept her at home, not taken her out into a place where people were eating food and let her cough all over the feckin lunch!

I said to DH, you'd think one of those adults would have taught her to cover her mouth with her hand when coughing, or at least told her not to cough over people. Looks like I didn't keep my voice low enough as the woman (I assumed she was the mother) asked the girl if she wanted to swap seats with her (ie: one seat away from me instead of right beside me) and she said to the man (the child's dad?) that woman keeps glaring at her

I feel a bit bad now, the wee girl was probably ill, and they may have left the house for a break, but I left half my lunch after she had coughed and spluttered all over it.

Sorry but don't see what the massive issue is - it's just a child coughing! I think people are so over the top these days and want to be doused in dettol at the slightest things. Obviously from a manners point of view it would have been better if she covered her mouth but it is highly unlikely you are going to get unwell from sitting next to a little girl.

I may be biased though as am a GP who gets coughed on by young, old and the great unwashed daily (& I'm still alive) x

I wasn't worried about getting unwell.

More worried about swallowing her spit that landed in my house salad.

Sorry, which may have landed in my house salad...

'Coughs and sneezes spread diseases' As a GP Benne, surely you should know how viruses etc are transmitted?

Giving people looks and then expecting them to mind-read from the look is always going to get you slated on MN.

Not saying anything directly to the people concerned, and instead bad-mouthing them in their ear-shot is another passive-aggressive tactic which will get you a flaming.

Two for two OP - I'd put the hard hat on if I were you.

How close are the tables that someone coughing

For what it's worth though, I really can't understand the mentality of someone taking their sick child out to a restaurant, letting them cough all over the people sitting next to them, and then be miffed when those people don't express unadulterated delight with the situation...!

I can just imagine the opposite AIBU...

'We took our DD out for lunch today - she has a cough, cold and sore throat - didn't really feel like eating and was maybe coughing a bit on the people sitting next to us and into their food. The woman started glaring at us! AIBU to think she should have had more compassion for our poor DD?'

Said person would be flamed to high hell and rightly so.

Unfortunate - what this mcdonalds?

I have accepted I was probably being a bit U.

Thing is, I'm the least passive aggressive person I know, so when I'm called it, it makes me giggle a bit.

I'm so not like that - Dh has been on night shifts, I have 2 jobs, I just wanted to be able to fill him in on stuff, enjoy the company without a cough cough cough and having to repeat myself every other sentence.

The tables are so close that you'd have to breath in to walk between them.

The one time we took DD she said it was like being a Hogwarts, it looks like one big large table, but actually there's room to get out. As I say, that is it's only drawback. It's slightly canteen like.

Well done for deciphering my unfinished post OP. For that YANBU

Benne but would this not put you off your dinner just a bit "coughed and spluttered and coughed and cleared her throat and coughed and climbed right up beside me on the bunker/sofa seat and coughed.... right into my face/plate "

I think as a GP you of all people deserve to enjoy a dinner break free of someone else's snot!

Agree with Mandy - seems it has been a been rough on here recently recently. Not a nice experience for you OP and maybe it wasn't the best way to handle it but that's probably what I'd have done. So often when you do say something you get the "I have a right to do what I like" sort of response and an overtly aggressive reaction which makes everythiing even more unpleasant. I'd love to think that the response to a polite request would be "Of course, I'm so sorry", but experience tells me it would be unlikely, ( though not impossible!)