To be perturbed that a woman felt compelled to come into a coffee shop today with the sole purpose of telling my 9 year old son ...

[QuintessentialyHollow]

"You will become fat" with an evil grin.

After his terrible migraine attack last weekend, we had an optical appointment today, so I took him out from school quarter past two. He was really worried about the appointment, and the optician was very thorough. It took half an hour. We went to a coffee shop for a snack, as we then had a 30 minute walk up to his tutor, where he was going to do one more hour of learning. It is important that he eats on regular intervals. He is skinny as a rake, and usually eats little and often.

So, we shared a ham and cheese panini, he had a rasberry water, and a chocolate muffin. We were sitting on bar stools, looking out the window, eating. By then it was 3 pm, and he had not eaten since lunch time at 12, dinner would be at 6pm.

So, a woman was looking at him from the bus stop outside. She suddenly opened up the door, came in and said something to him. He did not respond, and she left. I asked my son, "what did she say to you?"

"You will become fat"

How on earth can a total stranger make such a comment to a child?

Ahem.

You apologise for putting your question badly then flame me for reacting badly to it even though I apologised?

Quint - I was defending you!

And yawn at 'as it was related to SN/MH issues I would immediately be vilified'

Anyway hope you get some sleep soon and child feels better, I know that's no fun

Fanjo There are only 45 seconds between the two posts ..I think x post

( wel. I can't type that quickly anyway)

Perhaps she mistook him for someone she knows?

Ditto, Fanjo. I apologise for griping back. I am tired.

Ok, I will try to assume 'hidden' MH issues/ SN more often.

Ok, truce :) am with you on the no sleep thing, makes ones fuse shorter than usual :)

there all better...

Does anyone fancy a muffin?

pannini perhaps?

Both..lack of sleep makes me hungry

QH I don't think you were at all U for popping in for a snack, it's nice to have a bit of sit down time with kids between rushing to appointments if nothing else. What a shame it was spoiled, but I'd put that down to a one-off event and laugh it off.

Like your DS I also suffer from migraines, they are a killer but I find if I avoid cheese, chocolate, gin and weirdly garlic they aren't triggered so much.

No more x-posts please, my head hurts!

I will keep off AIBU in future unless I have had my full 8 hours.

For what it's worth I think the woman was probably trying to make an attempt at humour which was misjudged, in a kind of 'naughty, naughty... ' way about the muffin. Although who knows?

Anyway, cheers for letting me explain myself. Going to attempt to get some sleep later if DS will cooperate. DH going on a week long stag do in Las Vegas whilst I look after a poorly baby is probably not conducive to a particularly positive posting style.

I think there is a lot of muffin envy going around these days.

Maybe she'll go on a steam train one day, Quint.

Stratters- I only clicked on this because I saw yours was the last post and I was hoping not to have to do any work tday either..whilst enjoying a virtual steam trip.

I suffer migraines and feeding myself regularly (and at first blow with something very sugary or very salty) helps.

Actually, low blood sugar trips my migraines off. That or I faint.

Loads of possible explanation. She wanted to say hi to a sweet little boy, and ended up saying something daft, like so many people do.

She has issues with food and weight, of some kind.

Or maybe she just likes to criticize people.

mercibucket - how do you know its a mental health problem? Some people are just rude.

troisgarcons - outragious reply - I suffer from migraines and chocolate, cheese nor red wine trigger them for me so thats just a ridiculous thing to say.

I must agree I would be cross about someone saying that to DC as its none of their business!

If I were in your position, OP I probably would have told my son to ignore what the lady said becayse we don't know if she mentally ill or not but either way, it really doesn't matter what she said.

I take it that those who commented on the snack have never ever treated themselves to something yummy as a treat.

Good grief. Of course no one knows the woman had mental health issues.
Had she been sitting next to Quint turned to her son and said 'you will get fat' in a nasty way my guess would be rude and/or inappropriate.
The fact that she barged into the shop, grinned as she said it and then left is very odd. And the most likely 'guess' is surely that she is confused/ not quite rational

So given that Quint was puzzled as to why she did this I just posted my best guess. And given that Quint was detailing how much her son was eating my guess was in part to counter the idea that someone rational would be concerned that pannini and a cake may may a 9 year old fat.

It is not 'diagnosing mental health issues over the Internet', or whatever the slightly pompous phrase was, to speculate about motive on a thread which questions motivation.
Diagnosing mental health issues over the Internet is when you say 'i think your son may have paranoia' or 'your behaviour suggests you are suffering from PTSD'
Speculating that a grinning, irrational woman may have issues is just trying to understand a random incident.

I agree that she most likely has issues/problems. It is the most probable solution to a very irrational situation.

Yes.

I think the incident was as absurd as this thread has turned out.

They are very nice