CF on a train

[Polarbearflavour]

I was travelling first class on a train recently - not a stealth boast as it was one of those £15 weekend upgrades!

Minding my own business, reading the paper in a lovely empty carriage etc. I was sitting in the seat with extra legroom which is also for wheelchair users. Had my suitcase with me and had my foot up on the suitcase as it was a bit swollen (healed fracture but occasionally swells still).

Naturally, if a person in a wheelchair came along I would move straight away.

At the next stop, a family got in - mum, dad, toddler and baby in a pram. Mum glares through the vestibule door at me and I hear her say loudly “we could have sat there with the pram but some stuck up cow is there reading.” Not sure how reading a broadsheet newspaper and having the audacity to sit in first class makes me stuck up but never mind.

The Train Manager checks their tickets, tells them they should be in standard class if they don’t want to pay to upgrade (she refused) and said he’ll let them stay in the vestibule this time as their stop is coming up.

When they do get off the train, I hear mum again moaning how hard it is to get a pram off the train and that “snooty cow” should have offered l help. She then sticks her fingers up at me through the window and I smile and wave at her as she shots me a nasty look.

WTF? Why would I offer to help (even with the foot) after she was so rude about me?

If they had asked me politely I would have moved to let them park the pram there.

AIBU to buy one of those old sea forts only accessible by boat or helicopter and avoid people?!

The CF sounds massively unhappy with her life and has an inability to employ efficient social skills in order to negotiate her way through life.

Sucks to be her!

I'm actually quite shocked by the posters defending open homophobia.

Someone seriously calling me a 'cheeky git' for objecting to it, and indeed giving the ignorant poster the opportunity to rectify their error?

If you're shocked you're welcome to report it yourself 

Personally I think it's pretty clear from the context that the poster was in no way being homophobic.

I certainly was not being homophobic because I am NOT homophobic. I didn’t see anyone else being so either.

Slight detail here (see what I did there?!) but my awesome friend J has been questioned more than once about her entitlement to sit in 1st class. Not because she's black though. Oh no. Of course not. Racist? Noooooooo... 

OP I love that you smiled and waved. Totally the best response IMO 

I am gay and had no idea that this is what “knob jockey” meant. Very few people know that, I’m afraid. Now that I know, I won’t use it - but I won’t hold it against others who are likely as in the dark as me.

But all, other than lesbians and asexuals and those whose sexual preferences are specific, are surely nob jockeys ? I just can’t see that this is homophobic. I can see how it might once have been when the very word jockey would have demoted men only. (Possibly)

to be frank I don’t think I have ever heard the term so I do apologise if my understanding now is in some way revisionist.

I too am gay but not blessed with a non myself.

Can’t believe I am having to correct autocorrect to read ‘nob’ but there goes.

Knob anyway surely.

Aw now I just want to shout NOBS, it just gets me like that. (Heron you can go off piste with nobs I think, old school it with a K or just have it with NOBS on.)

I prefer them with a k clearly

I sat on her table.
Should have sat on her!
Lesbian not remotely offended by knob jockey (with or without k) phrase here. Didn't even know what it meant and wouldn't take offence anyway when it clearly wasn't insinuating anyone was gay.

Someone seriously calling me a 'cheeky git' for objecting to it, and indeed giving the ignorant poster the opportunity to rectify their error?

Instead of using the report button or PM'ing the person who used the phrase, you derail the thread. That is a cheeky git thing to do. You're coming across as one of those people who just has to do a public show of being 'so offended'.

Just quietly report or talk to the person who made the comment in the first place.

I occasionally get to travel first class when my employers pay for it, and because I'm usually staying overnight and not working on arrival I usually travel very comfortably - something like jeans and a T-shirt is pretty standard, and of course I'm carrying luggage. I've never once had Becca's experience of people reluctant to accept I should be there or plotting to get me off. I've also regularly seen people even more casually dressed than me who are treated with perfectly normal courtesy by the staff.

miscible it was a long time ago and hopefully no longer a common experience. I'm glad you've never experienced it.

It would have made a great thread - once I got the staff to accept I did indeed have a first class ticket, I could hear people whispering about how could I have got in.. How to get me out... Like it was some sort of top secret society and I definitely wasn't on the approved list! Kept me entertained the whole trip!. I wore jeans and t shirt and had the sheer nerve to have luggage!

What country planet was this? Because in the UK people travel in first class wearing jeans and carrying luggage literally all day long.

What a bizarre experience you seem to have had.

What country planet was this? Because in the UK people travel in first class wearing jeans and carrying luggage literally all day long.

How sad for you . In my experience of first class you'd only get politely horrified looks if you arrived in the carriage with noisy young children.

I've experienced it a year ago. Wearing a tracksuit in first class while everyone else was in suits etc.

I got some dirty looks..