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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To say some people think they are entitled to every bloody thing in the world and the world is full of rude obnoxious people with no manners.

49 replies

Sootie · 27/03/2012 16:27

I went to town today for the first time with BOTH my children.

My baby started whimpering a bit so I went to Boots to get some milk and as I paid he started crying alot. I went walking up to the Boots baby room and there was a woman standing in the next aisle looking at things with her pushchair, so I said "excuse me". The cow glared at me, tutted and then got her pushchair and quickly pushed it towards the baby room and stood there with a "I was here before you, so fuck off" look. I was SHOCKED. Why the hell couldn't she tell me she was waiting to go in? Anyway, so I took my baby out of his pushchair and fed him standing up.

So we walked a little bit and DD wanted an icecream, so I bought her a McFlurry. I went over to the tissues and got her one and wrapped it around the cup and as I turned around to get another one a woman and her daughter had come and put all their food around the tissue and ketchup station so I couldn't reach the tissues. When I said "excuse me, can I get a tissue", the woman just glared at me. So I reached over regardless and got another one. She could see I had a pushchaair and child - rude cow.

Finally, for the icing on the cake, someone stole my parking ticket after I paid for it...

This was not a good trip. Thanks for reading!

OP posts:
HalfPastWine · 27/03/2012 16:32

Welcome to my world! I notice this more and more. Or maybe it's because I'm getting older and grumpier!!!

YonWhaleFish · 27/03/2012 16:33

"When I said "excuse me, can I get a tissue", the woman just glared at me. So I reached over regardless and got another one. She could see I had a pushchaair and child"

I agree you were at the receiving end of some RUDE people today, but what's the child & pushchair got to do with anything in relation to your napkin incident?

Original poster
Sootie · 27/03/2012 16:38

Well, she should have understood that I may take a bit longer to do everything with a pushchair and child.

OP posts:
animula · 27/03/2012 16:39

How did someone steal your parking ticket?

What a shame you had such a bad day. It's such beautiful weather, and there you are with your two lovely children - it's a shame that you weren't able to just enjoy being alive - which is what early Spring usually gives to people.

My tip is to use situations like the first two as an excuse for conversation. Instead of just saying "Excuse Me" and so on, I tend to open up into a chat. I'm almost certainly a lot older than you. I find that the result is that it melts the casual patina of annoyance that might be building barriers between people & defuses situations.

It also marks me down as eccentric (to put it mildly) - but I can get away with that being portly and the other side of the hill.

Doesn't always work but when it does it often turns those mildly annoying collisions between separate people in an uncaring and indifferent/mildly hostile world into a situation where a little burst of happiness comes into being - leaving us both a bit more joyful and stronger to face the challenges.

(I am a bit of a hippy)

animula · 27/03/2012 16:41
Smile

Sootie - use words; if telepathy existed we wouldn't have invented gorgeous things like i-phones and Apple thingies.

LucyManga · 27/03/2012 16:42

Maybe you could learn to use the word 'please'?

OriginalJamie · 27/03/2012 16:42

I think that the first trip out with both children is a very stressful thing. I definitely found it so, and as such, you are bound to notice the bad stuff and the rude people.

I like your advice animula, and I am fairly similar. I think it is harder to follow when you are not feeling v relaxed to begin with, but it is always worth remembering that many many people are nice than are not.

YonWhaleFish · 27/03/2012 16:42

I still don't see the relevance. She had no right to glare at you just for saying "excuse me can I get a tissue" whether you had a pushchair and baby or not!

YonWhaleFish · 27/03/2012 16:44

And yes, it could have been the absence of the word "please"...or did you say please?

Sparklingbrook · 27/03/2012 16:48

When you have small children when you need a tissue you need a tissue. It's not like standing there on your own wanting a tissue is it? Sad

animula · 27/03/2012 16:49

Yes, OriginalJAmie is right. That first trip out alone with one child, and then two (and I guess three - though I didn't get that far) is really hard.

Well done you for getting as far as a shopping centre. I think it was a good month before I tried anything that adventurous.

It's all flooding back now: the fear of leaving one of them somewhere through ditziness and sleep deprivation; the horror of having to go to the loo; the nightmare that every minor action had to be engineered and planned like the retreat from Moscow.

At least it was sunny ...

And congratulations on your new arrival!

bejeezus · 27/03/2012 16:50

Hmm..OP..do you think your stress showed in your tone when you said 'excuse me'? -very unlucky to find 2 people have such a rude response to simple requests in 1 day?

I'm with animula -more words=less stress, and makes everyone's day nicer. Better luck, next trip

OriginalJamie · 27/03/2012 16:52

Actually, now I've returned to sanity again, I think the first few years with 2 children are stressful. I always felt we were teetering on the edge of some disaster or another. I always try and remember that when I see people with prams

wherearemysocks · 27/03/2012 16:52

I once got told that i was 'evil' and 'I hate women like you' because apparently my 2yr old who was stood quite nicely (for once) right next to me in the queue at a coffe shop, was in the way of some lady. I did point out that she could either go round or give her order from exactly where she was (you know when the servers take the order of multiple people often 3 or 4 back in the queue). She then went into even more of a rant, looking back it was almost comical, but at the time I was in shock, I didn't know what to say.

OrmIrian · 27/03/2012 17:00

People are very nice to me. Usually. In fact nastiness is so rare that I regard it as an odd phenomenon like a rain of frogs or a partial eclipse.

You seem to have met a whole almanacs worth of oddness in one day!

Do you smile at people? Do you speak to them in a pleasant voice? Or do you think you were a bit stressed to start with? I had a bad day on yesterday, came home and sobbed all over DH. No-one was unpleasant to me, it was just Stuff getting on top of me.

hiddenhome · 27/03/2012 17:00

This is what erasing Christianity is doing for society. Welcome to the brave new world Sad People are becoming more selfish, hostile and unpleasant. I've noticed a huge change in people since 2000.

OriginalJamie · 27/03/2012 17:03

I'm an atheist and have been so for 32 years hiddenhome. I'd date the change back to 1979 actually, and Thatcher, not the lack of God

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 27/03/2012 17:03

Yeah, it was so much nicer when we could burn women at the stake...

OriginalJamie · 27/03/2012 17:04

And actually, scrap that, there has been some negative change, but also a lot of positive....

animula · 27/03/2012 17:07

I know this is AIBU and not Chat but ... thinking back, I remember everything seeming more threatening-ish in the first few post-partum months. With hindsight, I reckon it's because I was hormonally on hyper-alert: centuries of evolution flooding my brain with chemicals to be aware of potential danger to my precious, vulnerable small ones.

Do you think it might be possible that your post-partum senses - ninja like - were overinterpreting the facial expressions and responses of these women and seeing hostility where there was perhaps neutrality - and waiting for more information from you?

I know that was often the case with me.

Yes, I did encounter some folk like wherearemysocks' lady - I think women with young children can elicit some sad/bad responses - but that would be less likely to be the case with other women with children.

Wherearemysocks - she sounds like one of those people whose loneliness and sadness have curdled into a free-form bitterness. Rather an object lesson in why it is generally good to try for a default setting of kindness-towards-others.

rogersmellyonthetelly · 27/03/2012 17:08

I don't think it's anything to do with the lack of Christianity (and I saw that as a practising Christian) I think it's more to do with a basic lack of manners, empathy and generally people being selfish.

TheSkiingGardener · 27/03/2012 17:11

What has erasing Christianity got to do with it? Can you only be polite if you're CofE?

ThisIsANickname · 27/03/2012 17:11

Hiddenhome, and I mean this with all possible respect, what the actual fuck?

LucyManga · 27/03/2012 17:16

Yeah, because only Christians are capable of being polite and responsible members of society@hidden Hmm

JustHecate · 27/03/2012 17:21

The thing about "excuse me" is that it's all in the tone. Do you think the fact you were a bit harrassed might have been coming out and instead of the polite "excuse me" you meant to say, what actually came out was " excuse me" or similar?

(I only ask because I've done it myself and been baffled by the reaction. Then my husband's told me my tone was horrible)