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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to eat nuts on a train.

70 replies

SpiritOfTheBuskersCat · 03/10/2013 16:58

so I'm happily eating my pistachios on the train and some woman comes over and says 'could you put them away my friends allergic' I said 'oh yes of course' started putting them back in my bag when she adds 'to be honest you shouldn't eat things like that on trains anyway' turned on her heel and stalled off. They then spend the next 10 minutes throwing me filthy looks. Now I understand nut allergies can be fatal and was prefectly happy to put them away, but was I bu eating them in the first place? Surely you cannot assume every where will be nut free and especially on public transport at 4 in the afternoon there is going to be risks?

OP posts:

IceCreamForCrow · 03/10/2013 18:14

YADDNBU.

I think I would have started to throw them in the air and try and catch them in my mouth

Micromanaging the the world at large must be terribly exhausting.

NuggetofPurestGreen · 03/10/2013 18:15

Ah Jaysus Needles that's a bit much. How could they do anyone any harm from in there??!

EeyoreIsh · 03/10/2013 18:21

This reminds me of a colleague who was 'allergic' to nuts, so none of us could bring anything nut related into the office. And when we did cake bakes (as we did weekly) she insisted all cakes were nut free.

I have a dairy allergy, so had sympathy for her but did think she she was being extreme.

I asked her one day if her allergy was of the anaphylaxis variety. No, it was just the smell made her feel sick.
How ridiculous! I had a genuine dairy allergy, another colleague couldn't eat gluten, we both made no fuss. But she insisted the office has this ridiculous nut ban because she didn't like the smell

toldmywrath · 03/10/2013 18:24

Last time I was on a train, the man adjacent clipped all his fingernails onto the seat next to him. And then a lady got on & sat on the clippings-now that is disgusting.
Nuts on a train- yes I feel a new film coming on!

Topseyt · 03/10/2013 18:25

I would have been tempted to ask whether or not it was an allergy to peanuts or pistachios. If it was to peanuts(quite likely) then I would have carried on eating the pistachios.

I do try to be considerate to people with allergies, but to be honest, there can be traces of peanut in many things.

A friend of my youngest daughter has a severe peanut allergy. She is fine with other people eating them, but just can't touch them herself. I adhere to that and to the "nut free" policy in schools, which is there for precisely that reason.

toldmywrath · 03/10/2013 18:25

Yanbu btw

Suzieismyname · 03/10/2013 18:27

Hmmm... given the choice of sticking to modes of transport that you'd have control over or dying I think I'd stick to the former!

NeedlesCuties · 03/10/2013 18:46

purestgreen thanks for that, I did think she was BU, but I doubted myself a bit as she was so certain I was doing a bad and dangerous thing.

Binkybix · 03/10/2013 18:50

She was rude. I don't even think she should have asked you to stop eating them, some people need to snack on healthy things like nuts because of diabetes, and one persons need does not trump another

I agree she was rude, but since some people can die from allergic reactions I do think their need to ask to have these things put away trumps the right of a diabetic to choose nuts over a different snack to raise blood sugar.

whiteadmiral you have my sympathy - I am tense enough with my DH's severe allergy. Can't imagine what it must be like for you.

Sparklingbrook · 03/10/2013 18:51

Re the nut free schools. How does this work at Secondary?

NuggetofPurestGreen · 03/10/2013 18:57

For God's sake Eeyore why didn't she just not eat the flippin cakes?! Did she have an icing deficiency she had to manage too

Needles how could that be bad and dangerous? Different if you were munching on them and strewing them all over the floor. And she didn't even know if anyone was allergic!!

WhiteAdmiral · 03/10/2013 19:01

Thanks Binkybix. It seems to be a special need about which many people feel perfectly happy to joke and disregard.

Thank goodness for supportive friends and schools who quietly make the small adjustments necessary to keep anaphylactic dc safe.

Thankfully we have lots of those people in our lives unlike many of the comments on here

NuggetofPurestGreen · 03/10/2013 19:08

"It seems to be a special need about which many people feel perfectly happy to joke and disregard. "

Totally WhiteAdmiral I often think about this - I know a girl with diabetes and I have never heard one person comment on it any kind of jokey lighthearted manner. My peanut allergy on the other hand seems to be fair game for "jokes" and mocking and people waving peanuts under my nose and thinking it's hilarious . When I challenge them of course it's just eyerolling and of course I am the one being unreasonable.

I'm sure it's a lot worse when it's your dc and not yourself.

quoteunquote · 03/10/2013 19:10

She sounds very odd, logically If her friend was likely to have a reaction from such a contact, she would have got up and left the carriage and gone to the opposite end of the train.

As other up thread who do suffer from anaphylactic shock from just particles have said, it is scary.

If they had observed you eating them, then the potential threat was already in the air, so why would they stay?

chocolatemartini · 03/10/2013 19:21

YADNBU more people should eat more food of all types on public transport so I don't feel so self conscious when I do

Rosduk · 03/10/2013 19:22

I think this lady was rude but as a mother of a 2 yo that can go into anaphylactic shock from airborne nuts I don't think asking for them to be put away was unreasonable. We also avoid public transport etc but know at some point we might have to use it and will just have to be vigilant.

I hate her having a nut allergy, its a pain and as we lost a son last year we are particularly paranoid of something happening to her- but she could pick up a nut that somebody has casually dropped on the ground. Allergies are amusing to some, but not when you live with them!

NuggetofPurestGreen · 03/10/2013 19:24

Sorry for your loss Rosduk and sympathy for your dd's allergy. It's an awful condition to have especially in a young child.

RubyrooUK · 03/10/2013 19:28

I think the woman sounds very rude.

BUT I have a friend who is allergic to nuts. She has never eaten out in a restaurant because of it. Her boyfriend makes her lunch each day with home-made bread in her nut-free kitchen and she eats at her desk, which nobody can come near with any food and is wiped down if anyone touches it. Despite this, she is regularly hospitalised for her allergy.

She cannot afford not to work. She has to take public transport in London to work.

I think it is pretty shit for my friend. If we were on a train, she would know immediately if someone nearby was eating nuts because she could feel it. She would feel instantly unwell and embarrassed to say anything because so many people think allergies are nonsense.

So do I think the woman was unreasonable to ask you to stop eating nuts? No. Should she have been polite? Yes.

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she found the thought of her friend getting ill on the train to be very stressful and snapped. That was unreasonable but might explain her random behaviour.

Just a different view trying to think kindly about why she was so rude.

WhiteAdmiral · 03/10/2013 20:12

NuggetsofPurestGreen and Rosduk you have my sympathy too. Rosduk I am so sorry to hear about your son.

Before my dds had their food allergies, I had a colleague with a very severe nut allergy. We were asked to not to eat nuts in the office. It never crossed my mind not to make this small adjustment to my eating habits in order that he could work without having a risk of anaphylaxis. In fact all my colleagues did it without any drama. I just couldn't live with myself if something I had brought into the office resulted in him being rushed to A and E.

I am truly baffled by how thoughtless some people are on this subject.

Yes of course the woman should have asked you politely and so you OP are not being unreasonable to have expected more politeness.

The posters who suggest that instead of allergic she was hungry, she was exaggerating and she should never be able to use public transport are of course unreasonable.

The posters who suggest that she should have continued eating the nuts while staring her hard in the face, or she should have thrown the nuts in the air and caught them in her mouth are of course extremely unreasonable and actually just really quite nasty.

EldritchCleavage · 04/10/2013 10:59

I completely sympathise with allergy sufferers and their families. I have a colleague with severe multiple food allergies and seeing how annoying people can be to him in restaurants when we all eat out has been a (sad) education.

But actually, that's why what this woman did was annoying. There is a hearts and minds battle to be fought here, so she shouldn't be getting ratty and aggressive with someone who was complying with her request.

That just runs the risk of encouraging the faction (which does exist on Mumsnet) that pooh poohs the existence of severe allergies and ascribes it all to attention-seeking.

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