So I’m most likely being over sensitive to this but I just can’t quite get over it. I’m not good with confrontation what do ever so feel like I just need a bit of a rant if anything.
Unfortunately I can’t drive and due to living in a semi rural area I have to use the bus that runs through our village quite often. I get quite anxious doing this and so have actually bought a pram that folds down tiny in one for periods where I may need to put the pram down for the bus if it’s busy. I had an appointment at the doctors this morning which isn’t in our village and is 25 minutes down an A road (just looked on maps and it says it would actually take 2 hours 45 minutes to walk there), so obviously this is something I had to get the bus for so headed to the bus stop with my son in his pram. It was pouring down with rain so went to wait under the shelter where another woman was sat who was quite a bit older and had a zimmer frame style of walker so it was clear she struggled with her mobility. She then started speaking under her breath but loud enough for me to hear her ‘all these prams getting on busses nowadays, mums aren’t like they used to be’. Normally I’d of stayed quiet but I was already have a crappy morning so I just replied ‘am I supposed to walk all the way to Weston (where the gp was) in this pouring down rain with a toddler?’ And she just said to me that ‘mums used to walk everywhere back in my day, and you’ll be using the priority seating yet it says nothing about prams on there so you shouldn’t be allowed’. Bare in mind that the busses that time of day are always so quiet with no one on there which is why I was going a little earlier to make sure I got the quieter bus. I told her that if anyone ever needed the space then I would always give it up and she just laughed at me and told me to stop lying. I then ended having to walk off and miss the bus because I could feel myself getting upset, I HATE confrontation and I just felt like all I did was turn up at the bus stop to use the bus? I’m always so respectful of everyone, I would always give my seat up on the bus and for her to just laugh at me saying I was lying when I said that really struck a nerve. I’ve seen her around the village before and if we’ve ever been on the same path I’ve always pulled in with my pram and waited for her to pass and not once would she ever acknowledge me nor say thank you. I’m friends with so many people in the village and regularly stop to chat to the older folk who I love speaking with. From her point of view I appreciate that if she’s experienced it in the past with people being unfair in terms of spacing on the busses with her mobility issues, then she understandably deserves the right of way as prams can fold down. I’d never argue that, but just the way she completely tarred me with the same brush when I am completely the opposite of that, really struck a nerve!!! And actually had me in tears on the way home, luckily one of my friends took me to my appointment in the end so I didn’t miss it but I just feel like she’s now shattered any confidence I had to get the bus.