AIBU to refuse apologising after being blocked in at Tesco?

[ThisIsAbsolutelyCrazy]

So, yesterday I go to Tesco with DH. DH is a wheelchair user and has a Blue Badge.

There were no disabled bays or parent and child bays so I went to a far corner of the car park where there were two empty rows of normal bays and parked between 2 bays so had room for DH to get in and out.

Lo and behold we came back to a car parked so close to my driver's side that I couldn't get between the cars - less than 10 inches in between. The car had parked over into the bay I had half parked in.

We were obviously WTF. The other bays around us were still empty.

Coming round to the front of the cars, we saw there was a young lad no more that 15-17 sitting in the passenger seat of the other car. He obviously couldn't get out of his door either because it was up against mine! I said 'what kind of idiot would park like this' or some such. He said 'my dad'. Then asked him why he'd blocked him in.as well. He didn't answer and just kept his head down. I will admit I did swear a bit saying for fucks sake, this is fucking disgusting. Then said 'tell your Dad he's a complete cunt'. At no point did I make threats to the lad or swear at him. I knew he didn't park the car.

Anyway I then climbed in through the passenger side, moved the car into the row in front, got DH in and we left.

The Dad had not come back. I'm kicking myself because I didn't take a picture of the way he'd parked.

Anyway, tonight at around 8pm there's a knock at the door and two policemen are there. My heart dropped because I thought it was about one of the DC (both were out with friends), but they said they'd had a complaint about me causing 'fear and alarm' to a minor!

Turns out the Dad must have already had my reg number and told the police what I'd said. No mention of how he'd blocked me deliberately and left his son trapped in the car!

He must have known whoever came back to the car would be angry!

Anyway police said I could make a formal apology to the boy and the matter would not be taken further - this was because I admitted swearing.

I said No I will not as I had figured out by then that the Dad had done this all deliberately. No clue who he is.

AIBU to think he must be an absolute psycho?

Especially to leave his son trapped in the car!

I think it's disgusting that you spoke to a child that way, he had done nothing wrong.

I'd be appalled if someone spoke to my teenage son that way and would also be tempted to report it to the police.

I wonder how the OP’s husband’s felt about all this? I think one ableist thing about this thread is the focus on the OP, the father, the kid in the car (rightly, the op was aggressive towards a child)…. But what was the OP’s husband’s experience, unable to get in the car and watching his wife shout and swear at a child? Was he also angry with the kid, or embarrassed, or also alarmed by the OPs loss of control?

I wondered that also.

I cared for my step mum for 10 years when i was a preteen and teenager who was disabled and ive worked in a carehome with disabled people when i was in school, and now look after two babies. But she shouldnt of spoken to the teenager the way she did because it was wrong. And im not acting like its some sort of perk but she still shouldnt of parked over 2 bays and then complain about someone blocking her in.

I'd hazard a guess that the OP has spent many a time defending and sticking up for her disabled DH

But go on.... educate us

You are as much of an idiot as the Dad. I would be absolutely livid if you had conveyed a message to my teen ds and used the word cunt in it. If you'd really wanted to call the driver that you should've waited for him not shout it at a passenger who is just a teenager. What is wrong with you?

I can't believe you think you don't owe the poor boy an apology. He didn't park the car next to yours, he did nothing wrong. Go and apologise to him ffs....only a (insert your own expletive) wouldn't!

The PP is right, though, that a blue badge does not legally entitle you to occupy two bays, and so it's not generally a good strategy to use.

It was an observation that the OP hasn’t told us about her husbands experience, and that others posters haven’t really asked either. It was an observation that there were four people involved (one of whom - the dad - wasn’t even present) but the person using a wheelchair (who was there) has been completed excluded from the narrative. I would suggest some collective ableism is going on (including from you, assuming the OP’s husband isn’t able to stick up for himself, which you have absolutely no evidence off).

I don’t know what you’re asking me to educate you on, really. Are you always so aggressive?

Of all the people in the wrong here, the young lad sitting in the car is not one of them. He didn't deserve an angry, maniac towering over him shouting abuse while he was forced to sit there. He didn't know how crazy the OP might be or what she might do next. That would have been potentially quite scary and there is no excuse for it. I'm sure it was quite embarrassing for your DH too. Having to sit there in his wheelchair while you went off on one.
Parking across 2 bays isn't really a great plan in the situation the OP describes. If that part of the car park was really half empty, then park in a single bay and use the space next to you to get the wheelchair in and out. If someone unfortunately parks next to you when you come back, reverse out and block the road for a few minutes while you load the wheelchair user in - a situation in which everyone waiting can see why you're doing it. This is what I do with my mum and I've only once come back to find someone parked next to us so 9 times out of 10 it's a good strategy.
Caring for a disabled person is hard and it's easy to lose your sense of proportion so I would not judge the OP too harshly for the poor parking judgement. However, it's no excuse for verbally abusing a child. Surely that's a basic human instinct not to behave like that however stressed.

Op shouldn't have parked across two bays.

Op shouldn't have shouted and sworn at the innocent lad.

The police shouldn't have come round to Op's and told her off like a naughty child because it is not a police matter.

Op shouldn't apologise or accept a caution.

Op YOU sound like the psycho!!!!!! Ejdd as t would you have done if someone had said this to your dc sitting in the passenger seat minding their own business?

Oh so using foul language, is different from swearing 'at him'.
If you have a scrap of decency you should hold your hands up and admit you were in the wrong treating the lad like that.

I meant he probably wouldn’t give a shit .
I grew up in a very angry house and an outburst like this wouldn’t have fazed me in the slightest. It would have been so minor in comparison to my actual problems .

You behaved appallingly.

But that still doesn't make what OP did less bad.

You're just being deliberately silly now. A child of 15-17 is perfectly old enough to sit and wait on their own in a parked car in a supermarket car park whilst their parent goes into a shop; but that doesn't stop them from being especially emotionally vulnerable - even more so than an adult - if verbally abused by a passing adult.

I mean, realistically, he was probably physically stronger than OP - so if he'd been as aggressive and abusive a character as OP chose to be, she could have had genuine cause to regret her choices - 'mess around and find out' and all that. Thankfully, in spite of his young years, he was more mature and had much better self-controlled than OP.

This 100pc

There's probably barely a 15 year old in the country who would consent to being called a child.

A child being anyone under 18 is purely a legal term, nobody I know calls people old enough to be paid to work in a shop or cafe a child.

But you were parked wrong, you can't take up 2 bays, most car parks say you have to park within the lines of a space (obviously!)

We're splitting hairs here. OK, then, a young person who is not yet an adult.

Children who are aged 3 or 4 like to think of themselves as 'big girls/boys' when compared with their baby siblings... but they aren't really big in truth.

Good grief. So many responses with no clue!

Let me be clear, cunt Dad absolutely did park against my car deliberately. I was in the middle of two bays. He parked half in one of the bays I was in, wing mirror was almost touching my car, and half in the next one. There were loads of other spaces. It's a massive carpark and has a main area nearer the supermarket entrance which gets very busy and then another area further down which is rarely busy, and it was practically empty so he had loads of bays to park in.

Why did he think he had a right to police how people parked anyway? If he was that bothered he could have reported it to customer services.

Blue badge was displayed.

I said the lad was trapped as there was no way he could get out on his side either and what kind of parent would park in such a way that their adult sized son had to scramble over the drivers seat to get out in an emergency or if he just wanted to get out! Who would do that?

Even he would have seen that he was so close to the a stranger's car that he and they couldn't even get between the cars, let alone open the door. My car is an MPV so it was much higher theirs, which was small saloon.

None of my kids would have sat there, worrying that the car owner could come back at any time and would be angry, they would have insisted to get out if I had decided to be a nutjob and behave like that!

Why would I park in one normal bay and inevitably have someone come and park right next to me (as cunt Dad did), when there was plenty of space to park in two? I wasn't affecting anyone else's ability to park.

People are seriously suggesting I should have waited for a disabled bay! So I should have blocked the road for however long, sitting there waiting for someone to leave, or driven round and round for an indeterminate time, probably missing a space because someone else came along and jumped in a newly free space before I got back round there? I have a lot of experience of hospital car parks!

I should have loaded DH out of the car while blocking the road, left him sitting in on the side of the road, parked in a normal bay, then moved the car out, blocking the road again while I reloaded him? Just in case 40+ cars converged into the lesser used area of the car park and someone needed the extra space? Seriously!

I was not 'shouting and screaming'. You can swear in a normal voice level you know.

DH was annoyed too but for reasons I don't need to go into, he didn't say much.

The lad in the car did not seem distressed. In fact when he said it was his Dad who parked there, he seemed a bit frustrated. IMO his Dad probably made him sit there and he knew what his Dad was like. I reckon Dad reported it to the police because he was pissed off his son got an opportunity to call him a cunt!

I told the police the situation, said I would not be apologising and I did not direct any threat or abuse to the son. Asked if they'd got CCTV from Tesco which they hadn't so they said they would speak to the father and be in contact if they were going to take it further. Haven't heard anything today.

Rang Tesco and they said their CCTV doesn't cover that area of the car park.

I really am annoyed at myself I didn't take a picture of his car but I was shocked that someone would do that and wasn't thinking quick.

Thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Dad was in a position of authority in some way and was outraged a stranger had shown anger at him doing his 'public service' by deliberately blocking them from getting into their car for no reason at all.

I won't be posting any further. The responses are too nuts and I'm busy.

😂😂😂😂😂 I love a good Karen post.
the only batahit one here, has been you love.

OK hun.

You were unreasonable, also, you will have looked like an absolute twat parking like that. Regardless of your reasons.

I don't think it's splitting hairs at all when you are talking about using swear words in front of "a child".