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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Woman on train

261 replies

holidaysareoverated · 12/08/2015 20:57

DH and I took our toddler on the train today. The train wasn't super busy but there were no free seats so we walked to the next carriage. A woman and her teenage daughter were sitting at a table for four. So we approached and asked them to move over so that we could sit in the two free seats.
The woman started sighing and eye rolling at her daughter as though we were being complete pains in the arse. I told her that she was rude and entitled and asked if she expected the train to herself. Her daughter then started saying " she only sighed, she is allowed to sigh". The woman herself remained silent and then said exasperatedly "there's so much space!", which there was in the aisles. There were no other free seats at all.
AIBU to have fantasised about spilling my coffee all over them? I can't believe she thought a pregnant woman with a toddler should stand up so that she and her daughter could have a table for four to themselves!

OP posts:
bugslife · 12/08/2015 23:15

YANBU. I can't understand some people on here sometimes. Why should she be met with a rude attitude to an entirely reasonable request. Definitely must have been EmmaU !!

whatsthatcomingoverthehill · 12/08/2015 23:19

I do my best to seek out the Emmas of this world if on a busy train. They are very easy to spot: bag/coat on seat; sitting in aisle seat studiously avoiding eye contact or making themselves look busy etc. I think the people who aren't being twats deserve the spare seat. It's a public service I tell ya.

MrsKoala · 12/08/2015 23:29

What i like to do is make my train journeys into a 'spare seat challenge'. I have decided that i am the lord of the particular empty seat next to me. Therefore it is my duty to only allow the bravest person to rest their bum on it. I pack smelly egg and fish sandwiches and pickled onion monster munch. Then at every stop i take a huge bite and eat exaggeratedly, smiling at everyone who gets on. Only the one who, despite this, asks for the seat is truly worthy of it. I of course feel quite sick now, but it's totally worth it to select 'the one'. It's a bit like Highlander (i would imagine if i'd ever actually seen Highlander. Didn't Queen do one of the songs?).

I read that Henry the V picked his knights in much the same way.

ilovesooty · 12/08/2015 23:33

Does the U in Emma's name stand for unreasonable?

Charis1 · 12/08/2015 23:34

I think you were very rude and unnecessary, and a poor example to your child. Why did you have to start a row? They were moving up for you, the daughter was quite right, her mother was allowed to sigh. Why did you have to go ramping up the tension?

StealthPolarBear · 12/08/2015 23:34
StealthPolarBear · 12/08/2015 23:36

Don't pick on Emma sooty she's well 'ard

verystressedmum · 12/08/2015 23:37

Emma's full of hot air very easy to be so bolshy behind a computer but in real life if someone wanted the seat she'd just move for them. What exactly would she do to stop them getting to the seat, scream assault? Never heard so much shit in my life.

Sansarya · 12/08/2015 23:38

I'm confused as to how Emma managed to stop people from sitting next to her on the London Underground given that almost all the tube lines have two long rows of seats facing each other. So there would've been no need to clamber over her to get to the seat. And given London commuters, I think she would've got very short shift if she told someone they couldn't sit next to her.

SistersofPercy · 12/08/2015 23:38

One of two scenarios is likely to befall dear Emma.

  1. she refuses to move for the wrong person one day and finds herself stabbed/followed /punched etc

Or, the more likely one

  1. there are plenty of seats for her to choose from on the school bus when she starts back next month.
Pneumometer · 12/08/2015 23:39

Henry the V

Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? May I cram within this wooden O the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?

No, but if I budge up a bit you can probably get your laptop on the end of the table, hang on, I'll just fold up my paper.

JassyRadlett · 12/08/2015 23:39

I always try to stand near the Emmas of the world so that in case my barely controlled pregnancy sickness becomes less controlled, I have a convenient idiot to be sick on without feeling too guilty about it.

Pneumometer · 12/08/2015 23:48

London Underground given that almost all the tube lines have two long rows of seats facing each other.

Even the stock (mostly now either withdrawn or refurbished) that had bays of four seats is hardly equipped for blocking access to the window side.

Woman on train
ChilliAndMint · 12/08/2015 23:49

YANBU nor were you rude. People like them need to be told they are taking the piss.

ilovesooty · 12/08/2015 23:53

Sorry Stealth Grin

MrsSchadenfreude · 12/08/2015 23:59

Oooh, I came across an Emma on the bus the other day. It was the last seat, and she had spread out on it: her make up, eyeshadow, liner, mascara, foundation, lippy, eyelash curlers, her bag and a tupperware pot of muesli. I asked her if she could please move her stuff so that I could sit down. She rolled her eyes, and said "Can't you, like, sit somewhere else, or stand?" I said that I couldn't, and if she didn't move her stuff within the next 10 seconds, I would chuck it all down the bus. (I was due on.) Reader, she not only moved her stuff, she moved herself to stand in the aisle away from the mad lady.

youareallbonkers · 13/08/2015 00:04

Why did you need two seats, why couldn't you just sit in the vacant one toddler on knee? If the train was that full he shouldn't have a seat anyway

ladymariner · 13/08/2015 00:10

RTFT bonkers!

AlbrechtDurer · 13/08/2015 00:13

I see that the name "Emma" is already starting to be used as a common noun signifying a certain kind of ignorant, entitled pwincess woman in the same way as "Wendy" has.

loveareadingthanks · 13/08/2015 00:33

youareallbonkers read the Op. OP plus DH plus toddler. 2 adults wanting two seats. Not a separate seat for toddler.

Rovinja · 13/08/2015 06:57

The seats on the Underground also usually have armrests. So even if Emma is particularly large of arse, there isn't really any way for her to take up more than one seat!

minibmw2010 · 13/08/2015 07:37

I'd love to know what train line Emma uses. When I commuted in before I had DS thankfully people behaved like normal people. I would always take a window seat anyway, but if I needed to pass a person to get to it,a simple 'excuse me please' guaranteed they'd move for me to get in. And though it never happened, if they had even thought of refusing damn right I'd have gotten the conductor - £4k a year meant I was using that spare seat. Grin

I'm taking my son on the train into London tomorrow and praying I don't meet an Emma. I've booked our seats and bought him a ticket (even though he could technically go free) to ensure a smooth journey.

muminhants1 · 13/08/2015 08:12

I've never had anyone refuse to let me sit down in many years of commuting and train travel. Yes the occasional huff over moving a bag but then I usually smile sweetly and say "you obviously don't travel frequently on these commuter trains, they get very busy I'm afraid" even though I've seen them on the train at that time before :)

Except one time when someone had huge cases. It was only a 10 minute journey so I let it go. A couple of other times people (older ladies) have had smaller cases on the seat and start to get het up about moving them them (I do wish rail companies would organise proper luggage areas on their trains, notably South West Trains) so each time I called on the aid of a young lad to put it on the overhead rack.

I prefer aisle seats (although you get hit by people going past as they won't take their bags off their shoulders) because Waterloo is a terminus, so everyone gets off together at the end of the line. If you are unlucky you get stuck in the window seat while someone finishes reading their book, takes ages to put it away, then puts their jacket on and only then gets up and moves to get off, 5 minutes after the train arrived (my husband is like that, though he goes for a window seat). There are periodic comments about selfish people who hog aisle seats but if I get there first I choose my seat.

Trills · 13/08/2015 08:24

I did once have an anti-Emma.

I got onto a train, sat at a window seat like a normal human being.

A man sat next to me EVEN THOUGH THERE WERE FREE DOUBLE SEATS.

He then got out his laptop and started typing in a way that nudged me constantly.

I said "excuse me", made him let me out, and sat on the other side in an empty double.

Pneumometer · 13/08/2015 09:21

He then got out his laptop and started typing in a way that nudged me constantly.

Ah, modern mating displays.