AIBU to have not given up my parking spot?

[KHR1606]

Sorry for the long post.....

I parked my car in the IKEA car park this morning. The bays next to me were for electric vehicles. I got out my car & went in the back to get my 18 month old DS out his car seat & to put his coat on. We then went to the boot to get his trike out. DS is stood next to me as I'm unfolding & securing the trike.

A woman then approaches me politely asking for my spot so she can charge her car. I look at the ground to see if I've parked in the electric bay. I see that I haven't & say "I can park here" she says, "I can too!" I politely say no because that'd mean me undoing the trike & putting it away then taking my son's coat off & putting him back in his seat then driving around for another spot. Just the thought of it wore me out! She offered to help but again I politely said I'm not willing to do it because it's just too much hassle.

The woman persisted & persisted & persisted, I'm not exaggerating. She kept saying I have an appointment & I need to charge my car. Again I said no. I said if I was without DS I would have given you my spot. She wouldn't stop asking so I got really fed up & shouted loudly, "Oh for f**k sake!" It's only then that she walked away to her car which was 2 bays away....... charging!!!!!

I didn't even realise her car was on charge because I was too busy getting DS in the trike. As I was strapping him in I heard her say "bitch", "evil", the sound of spitting but not actually spitting. All this time I was looking at DS's face talking & smiling with him. It's only when I was ready to walk off that I asked, "did you say something!?" She sarcastically smiled & said no!

She then went on again about it wouldn't have taken me long to move my car. I again repeated myself that I was parked in a suitable bay & I wasn't going to inconvenience myself & DS for her. I told her that being out with a child is sometimes difficult. She said I have a child too. I replied "Then you know! Stop being entitled!" All of this was being shouted. We had people looking at us.

I walked off and said have a lovely day!! It's only when I walked off & called my sister to vent that I realised her car was charging. Why the f**k did she want my spot then? Why ask a mother & toddler to move?
I'm glad I didn't move, especially after calling me a bitch and evil. She must not know about Jeffrey Dahmer if she thinks I'm evil!

I'm howling at you having to take your child's coat off to put him back in the car..... would he have melted in the two minutes you moved parking spaces?

Think all the bit about the charging point has got people all off on a tangent! @KHR1606 is it basically you'd parked, unloaded the kids and other woman basically said I want that parking space, can you find another one so l don't have to? How is that anywhere near reasonable!

But WHY should she go and find another space, just because this woman asks?!

Why are people so hung up on the trike??? Can always rely on Munsnet to totally miss the point of a thread! It's essentially a pushchair disguised so that the toddler is entertained. FWIW I think the OP was totally reasonable to not want to move. She wasnt obliged to and it would have been a faff putting her child back into the car and finding another space. And yes she would have had to strap him in even at 10mph (a pp suggested she wouldnt need to). Knowing ikea there wouldnt have been a space anywhere nearby so it would have been inconvenient. The request was made (and it was only a request) and declined (in Mumsnet terms - 'that doesn't work for me') end of. Yes you should help people out where you can but not when it massively inconveniences yourself... well maybe not massively but sufficiently.

It's not safe to wear coats in car seats. It's not particularly funny.

She should have used her app to tell her if the faster car charger is available. Charging your car outside of your home can be a lengthy process, which you need to factor into your journey, so she's BU, expecting you to move.

If she was that desperate, she could have topped up her car on the slower charger, just enough to get where she needs to be. It's slow, but not that slow.

It’s not basically that though, the women wasn’t looking for a parking space, she needed to charge her car. There are a lot of parking spaces and a tiny amount of charging points. It’s not quite the same as ‘I want it more - SO MOVE’
It wasn’t ‘so I don’t have to’ as there were no other charging points.
The woman even offered to help OP with her stuff.
She was panicking about her onward journey due to the charge she had left, not unreasonable to ask.

It’s nice to be nice, no?

Maybe the coat was a padded one for winter, so if she hadn't taken it off then the car seat straps would have needed adjusting to get him in. She still would have had to strap him in because she was driving round the car park and no one needs a loose 18 month in a car. Plus if they're anything like mine were at that age, allowing them to not be strapped in that time would have caused a war everytime I tried to strap them in after that!

I really don't get how many people are saying OP was unreasonable to not move. She wasn't in an EV charging spot so it's the equivalent of someone coming up to me when I park in a supermarket and saying you have to move, I want your spot.

Honestly, I'm the biggest pushover ever, and even I wouldn't have agreed to move!

If it was a rapid charge port then she definitely should have explained that as the whole interaction doesn’t make sense otherwise. Tbh, apart from the screaming match (which seems to have been instigated by her anyway) you handled it OK by the sounds of it.

The woman was already charging her car so why should OP give up her own non charging space?

Why should she be nice though?!
The woman already had a space and a charging point

@luxxlisbon it was charging in another bay?

She wouldn't stop asking so I got really fed up & shouted loudly, "Oh for fk sake!" It's only then that she walked away to her car which was 2 bays away....... charging!!!!!

I didn't even realise her car was on charge because I was too busy getting DS in the trike.

**

I don't get this though, the OP wasn't in a charging spot, and the woman asking her to move already was parked in a charging bay with her car on charge so I don't get how she asked the OP to move because she needed her to charge her car. What am I missing?!

Oh come on @howaboutchocolate yes it's not safe for children to wear coats in the car for long journeys but for the minute it would take to move round a carpark, let's not be OTT!!

I would have told her to eff-off too.

I've not charged at Ikea but they have Ecotricity chargers which aren't the greatest and the crazy EV woman might have been having a problem and needed to move to a different charger.

But given she didn't manage to explain this to the OP I wonder if in fact she was a triple cheeky fucker who wanted to put her car onto charge then walk away from it for hours to go to her appointment without being done for overstaying in a charging bay.

I'm shocked at the amount of people saying you should have moved tbh. Ikea is mental at the best of times...you weren't in an actual charging space according to your post and I agree that when you have kids it feels like a major event getting them in and out of cars alot of the time. My sons a bugger for running off ahead anyway so I'd have been trying to rein him in, getting my stuff out aswell as his stuff and meanwhile a strangers nagging for a space aswell when I've already got half my stuff out. Why did this woman make it your issue she has failed to prepare for an important meeting she had to go to ? If I knew I needed fuel before work I'd fill the day before. Surely that's the same with the electric cars ? Working out where you can go ahead of time that's generally quiet/ plenty of time to get it done. People too often get mad at the person instead of the situation.

The most logical solution was that it wasn’t working since she said she couldn’t charge her car.

That's not OPs problem though
OP is perfectly entitled to say no and the woman should have accepted that answer the 1st time

This thread has certainly attracted the hard of thinking. I'd back away now OP if I were you and leave them to quarrel over nonexistent husbands, the fact that (in their tiny brains) you were obviously in an EV charging space, and how mentioning the name of a serial killer to draw a comparison when you've been called evil is mind blowing (this is a parenting forum!) and makes the thread unreadable.

These threads that go a bit bonkers with posters just making up their own narrative and going off on one are really tiresome.

Or also she was a lazy entitled fucker who didn't want to look for a space It's only then that she walked away to her car which was 2 bays away....... charging!!!!!
The car was charging.

It's like a pushchair/ bike for toddlers if it's what I'm thinking of

Ywnbu to not want to move, but this is out weighed by you actively seeking to continue the argument, including shouting, whilst your son was in your care. You are not coming across very positively here.