to enjoy winding up people who think their bag needs a seat

[motheroftwoboys]

I usually wimp out of asking people to move so I can sit down but yesterday and today have, with a smile, asked to sit down. You would think I was asking the earth. Young woman yesterday, sitting on the aisle seat on a busy bus with very small handbag on seat. She sighed dramatically and made a big play of making me sit at the window instead of moving across herself. I got off before her and she actually tutted when I politedly said excuse me. I said thank you in over loud and friendly way and I was still chuckling when I got off the bus. This morning there was a bloke who thought his paper needed a seat when he was reading it. Same tactic. Same response. Wonder what my journey home will bring. [wing]

Sorry I'm talking about human beings now when we're supposed to be talking about bags!

I always made a point of sitting in the aisle seat when pg in case i had to do a hurried rush to the loo to vomit.

Last week I got on my packed commuter train, and there was one seat with a bag. The lady huffed and puffed and glared at me, but i sat down. i just thought, when you can see that people are standing, what makes you think your bag has the right to a seat?

I was also on a packed train once where a girl refused to move her bag. The ticket person came and told her to move it, and she refused saying that it was not her problem that the train service had more people than seats. that ended up being a massive bunfight and she was escorted off the train by police at the next stop, and the carriage cheered.

'I just walk over and start sitting down, bag soon moves! (Especially at the moment they see the bump and act quicker!) '

I do this. And if they say they are saving it, I tell them there's no reserved sign and sit down. Men who spread their legs, I say, 'Excuse me, but your balls can't possibly need their own seat, do you mind closing your legs.'

Never had a problem yet.

I was in a window seat once on an old style bus and heavily pregnant. This fat chick got on and started squeezing me against the wall. I said, 'Do you mind?' She said, 'Can you move any?' 'Does it look like I can? If you're too fat to fit in the seat then stand up!' She got up and left.

I love you expat

'I'm saving this.' Unless it's a venue in which each seat is ticketed, then it's first-come, first-served. I do this with people who are sitting on their own in a food court at a table for 4 or more. Just sit down! 'Oh, someone is sitting there.' Really? Then I announce to the air, 'I can't see you or feel you, but thanks for the loan of your seat anyway!' and sit down. No ticket for your bag, balls, invisible friends, no fucking seat.

My aunt used to fly for Air France and they had this problem with people wanting to use the seat next to them for a cuddly, an unticketed child, their stuff. Very simple. No ticket, no seat.

"Then I announce to the air, 'I can't see you or feel you, but thanks for the loan of your seat anyway!'"

Sooo many things about public transport piss me off.

People who push in front of buggies, then get huffy because they've stood/sat in the buggy spot.

People who are standing in the aisle but refuse to move when you're exiting (no, breathing in does not mean I won't run over your size elevens).

People who see elderly passengers struggling to get on or off and ignore them. (This includes the bus drivers who pull away too early).

Bicycles in the buggy/wheelchair spot on a train.

Children standing up (often on the seats). It's so dangerous!

And just yesterday, the girl who played that bloody Taylor Swift song repeatedly and loudly for the entire journey, ignoring scowls, tuts, and my three-year-old demanding (very disdainfully) "What's that noise?"

Thank you OP! I had no idea I was so angry about all this...

YABU. Whatever happened to simply asking nicely?

I wouldn't take up a seat I hadn't paid for by blocking it with bags and such, but I do reserve the right to sit in an aisle seat if I want to and then make room for a subsequent passenger to get into the window seat. The aisle is the best seat and I was there first - I don't get why I should give up my seat when there is a free one next to me.

My bag likes having a seat, but it is well brought up and knows it has to sit on my laptop once the train gets crowded. Not before, though .

Children on seats in my experience depends on the ages of them.My 2 are 3 and 5 and i wouldnt expect them to stand as the buses are to swervy.But if they were older and were able to stand then i would do it.

If im on the bus i just go for teh first available seat or if i have the buggy i go sit in there with teh buggy

My bag and shopping like having a seat, too, but they are moved when it becomes obvious that people need the seat.

Buggies are a nuisance. I don't normally use public transport but did the other day and there was a designated buggy area, and this lady got on and asked someone to move, then she had her hulking buggy STILL poking well out into the aisle.

I said, 'Excuse me, you need to move your buggy so people can get out without tripping.' She got all arsey. So? That's ridiculous to have a buggy so big you can't even fit it in the designated space! Of course, I told her that.

Aisle sitters on buses and trains really fuck me off.

When one half-heartedly moves imagining that I am going to climb over them to get to the window seat, I always say loudly:

'Actually it'll be a lot easier for us both if you just slide over'

...and they always do.

School open day, lots of late comers, who would just fit in the hall.

I couldn't believe the lady in front of me waited until they started finding spare chairs to move her umbrella from the seat next to her.

And why should someone move over if they are in the aisle seat?

Because it's so much quicker and easier for everyone else, and them, to just move over rather than make the other passenger climb over them to get to the inside seat! The bus has nearly always started moving by that point, the person who insists on staying in the aisle invaraibly gets trodden on and the person clambering over invariably nearly falls over or bashes their head. Even for the very small and nimble it's a clumsy manoevre. Unless you're literally getting off next stop, just budge up ffs!

Really? You haven't realised that? You're genuinely confused as to why it's annoying

SofaKing - I use the same tactic as your boss. I dont have a car so I use trains and buses a lot and I tend to sort of dramatically slump onto a seat only a brief moment after alerting the owner of the said 'bag-on-the-seat' that I am suddenly overcome by the need to sit down.

I always find it slightly amazing how quickly a 50 year old woman sitting oblivious to the world can snatch her handbag from under my impending bottom.

Whatever happened to simply asking nicely?

Because it's so much more fun to let rude inconsiderate people know that they are being rude and inconsiderate! If you're nice to them they'll just keep doing it!

I would not move over to a window seat. I sit where ever i want, and will not move.

I work on the trains and the whole ' paying for a ticket equals a seat' is crap. You are paying for the pleasure of traveling on a train, getting from a to b, a seat is a bonus.

When i took my neice out for the day we went by train and had to travel home at peak time, she got a nice comfortable seat. No one asked her to move and if they did thy would have been told no.

I like being PA to oblivious, self-entitled handbags. It makes my journey to work so much more fun.

Worst offenders: students (loads of them up here with not an ounce of common sense or manners) and women over 55.

When you all say about your bag being on the seat, I hope you mean shopping bag and not hand bag. I was on a bus once and some young men grabbed a lady's bag that she had given a seat to and jumped off the bus with it. She was screaming "my bag! My phone!" and I was like That deters me big time from allowing my bag a seat!

Hmm, I often put my (heavy) bag on the seat next to me - why not if there's no one trying to sit there and plenty of other seats on the bus/train? Occasionally I become so bored and oblivious that I don't notice that the bus is filling up, and it massively pisses me off that many people will just point their huge arses in your direction and start to sit down on your stuff, rather than just asking politely if you can move it.

It's not to much not moving over to the window seat. Tbh, I like the window seat, I don't understand why people prefer the aisle seat. It's the acting like you are asking a ridiculous request when you ask to get past, and it's the moving your legs half a feckin inch rather than standing up and letting someone past!

'Actually it'll be a lot easier for us both if you just slide over'

Ok, I'm going to be brave and say this next time

I don't know why people sit there all limp and pathetic so you have to squeeze past them and end up giving them a big face full of rucksack or a good stomp to the toes. It really is much easier to just flaming well move over!

Anyone who huffs and puffs at a perfectly reasonable request is an arsehole and should be publicly sneered at.