AIBU to be disappointed about this?

[mrsm43s]

Later this week, on my birthday, we're doing a long train journey to visit friends for a few days. Whenever we do these long journeys, we always book them over lunchtime, and do a "train picnic" of nice food e.g afternoon tea style and share some prosecco or anti pasta style and share some red. It means that our trip starts when we get in the train, and the journey flies by.

DH booked the train tickets, and he just accepted the default seating rather than selecting seats, and as a consequence we're stuck on a middle and aisle seat with no table. So lunch is pretty much going to be a sarnie and a bottle of water as there's no table space, the journey is going to be long, boring and uncomfortable, squashed in next to a stranger.

We've tried to change seats now, but as it's a couple of days away, there's no availability of seats at a table, and no availability in first class either.

I feel like instead of my birthday starting at 11.30am once we're on the train, it's not going to start until 3pm when we arrive, and the journey is something to be tolerated, rather than something to be enjoyed.

I don't want to be spoilt, and I get that I'm going to have a lovely time with my friends, but I'm really grumpy and disappointed. I think it's mostly because DH has form for this kind of stuff, always taking the quick, easy way, and never checking anything.

AIBU to be pissed off? And does anyone have any ideas of how to make the journey more fun, or special/treat lunch ideas possible to eat when sitting in a cramped middle seat?

I do wonder how some people get through life when they are adverse to people eating food. Do they avoid their dinner tables, restaurants, pubs, planes incase someone makes a chewing noise or, God forbid, quenches their thirst with a slurp of drink.
Back to the point of the thread, I would be really pissed off too. As to me, holidays or celebrations start when you are on the plane, train etc.

Yup. So it's fine if you buy it on the train, but if you buy it from M&S at the station, it clearly comes with instructions that you must eat it "performatively" accompanied by chomping, slurping and gulping.

Or maybe it's a perfectly normal thing to have a few M&S deli items and a glass of wine on a long lunchtime train journey.

But in any case, it's not really about the food. It's about feeling frustrated that DH can't manage a simple process like booking the train without doing a rubbish job of it. (Incidentally, I booked the hotels, made plans with/communicated with friends, have booked the activity that we're prebooking etc. His one job was to book the seats on the trains.)

Prosecco and charcuterie? How long before the smelly burps start, because they always do? That’s nice for the other passengers, not!

Grim and the tables are disgusting after pissed people throw up on them! (saw it with my own eyes)

Is his name Richard and does he have to ‘keep up appearances’?

Grazing boxes. 🤢🤢🤢

I assume the fact people have said "eww the tables on a train will be dirty". I seriously doubt any actual food will touch the table 😂
It will go from packet to hand, hand to mouth 🤔

Seriously....what is your problem ?
A grazing box is just an assortment of food.
Why is that so 🤢?

Yes, but where does that lead to not using plates at home? How is it connected?

Train companies do clean the trains you know 🙄

Livestock graze.
It's just a platter, the graze box is a gimmick name to re-market the good old platter.

Because they seem to think the food will be placed directly into the table.

I honestly think @Morgenrot25 has a genuine issue with food of all kinds. She seems to want people to eat ideally nothing, or if they must, hide away in a dark corner and as quickly as possible, but silently, consume a plain bit of bread and some water. Having first bleached their hands and possibly the food.

Oh God, this made me laugh because it’s exactly how I pictured it🤣🤣

Not between every passenger and not that thoroughly - most folk would just stick a napkin down though. That's a non-issue really.

Platter, graze box, picnic selection, bento box, lunchbox selection.....
who cares what it's bloody called 😂

Nope.
Another nice try though.

The marketers who want us to buy them?

This has to go into classics surely?

OP it will be ok. Just get tins of drink rather than a bottle, and get contained stuff like sushi rather than the assortment you normally get. It's not big deal at all.

If your dh is that crap then don't get him to do the stuff that really matters to you?

Well no. Also the train might have to wait until the end of the line before a cleaner gets on.
If you can't cope with that though I assume you can't cope with public transport in general.
EVERYTHING on a train will have been touched by someone else.

I don’t give a shit about the OP picnicking on the train. It’s not for me, and I’d be mildly irritated at it happening next to me, but each to their own. I do however think it’s massively precious to have a strop about having to sit next to your partner to do it instead of opposite them.

ETA personally I’d always book the seats of 2 instead of the 4 people seats, precisely so I don’t have to sit next to strangers having picnics.

I think they're maybe thinking of non-packaged stuff and/or spillage/dropage/ripped packaging, as opposed to licking mozarella balls or olives directly off the table?

Agreed. I didn't raise the table cleanliness issue.

To be honest - I don't really care or notice what specific shops call it.
If I am at a railway station and need food for the journey I go to whichever retailer is there.
Usually that's M+S because they always seem to be there 😂
I pick the food I want to eat - not whether it's called a "platter" or a "snack box".

I think the OP should wipe the table with her elbow and turn it into a full on charcuterie board.

Bowing out now you say…..

🤣🤣🤣🤣