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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to have given an old lady a piece of my mind?

172 replies

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 18:30

I was travelling on the bus today to meet up with some other mummies.

There were 3 buggies already on the bus when I spotted a lady with a pram trying to get on (I realised later it was actually a friend of mine - I'm a bit short-sighted!). The driver told her it was full so she thanked him and joined the back of the queue to wait for the next one.

The horrible old cow old lady sitting in front of me loudly said "I don't know why they can't just walk".

Well, I was not having that! Her comment was down right rude, thoughtless and unneccessary. So I gave her a piece of my mind!

I should add that when I got on the bus carrying DS in a sling and carrying 2 bags she hadn't moved her bag so I could sit down, despite it being a seat for "those less able to stand". (Perhaps I am being unreasonable there and her bag needed the seat more than woman carrying 3mo child and shopping??!)

I don't normally do this kind of thing but I just lost it. AIBU? Would you do the same?

OP posts:

Littlepurpleprincess · 02/07/2009 19:46

Oh I tell you the worst for putting bags on seats are secondary school kids. Honestly they can't bear to have anyone they don't know sit next to them!

Overmydeadbody · 02/07/2009 19:47

I think, regardless of age, somepeople are miserable rude beings, and as they get older they get more vocal and less restrained in voicing their disaproval of others.

Just because they've been alive for longer than others doesn't give them the right to be rude to others.

Some of the rudest people I've ever encountered in my life where the patients in an old people's home I worked in.

Original poster

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 19:49

So I suppose I'm really performing a community service by engaging her in conversation?

OP posts:

SerendipitousHarlot · 02/07/2009 19:51

Precisely. You could almost say that you're volunteering. Well done you!

Original poster

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 19:52

Right I shall don best Joyce Grenfell voice (thanks screamingabdab!) and take on the yoof too!

Will not have it be said that I discriminate

OP posts:

Original poster

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 19:54

... except I have no idea what young people talk about nowadays

OP posts:

SerendipitousHarlot · 02/07/2009 19:58

Chillaxin, innit.

Littlepurpleprincess · 02/07/2009 20:01

In da ghetto!

weegiemum · 02/07/2009 20:02

I got on the bus with dd2 in her Maclaren Major buggy recently (its big, cos she is 5 but has a hip condition) and as I manouevered it into the space the older lady opposite said loudly to no-one in particular "you would think a child of that age could walk".

I was - though its not the first time I've had comments like that (had one at the school gate once as well!)

I almost went off on one, but restrained myself! I just said (in my best posh voice) "well my daughter has a degenerative hip condition and she is off her feet just now" and stuck my nose on the air.

Dd2 then tried to engage the witch woman in conversation and proceeded to educate her about it "I've got Perthes disease you know, it means I'm not allowed to walk or run or hop or skip ........ etc" and then regaled her with tales of her wobbly tooth!

riddley · 02/07/2009 20:06

The rudest, most racist old lady in the WORLD got on our bus the other day heading for Peckham

I just sort of clocked her in my peripheral vision sighing loudly when an African mum and buggy got on. I thought nuffink of it, till a muslim woman got on wearing a scarf-nowhere NEAR the old lady, and she rolled her eyes all theatrically, like. Then more and more ethnic minority people got on, and each time she got more and more EXTREME eg jerking her head back, shouting "CUH" etc etc. By the time we started going past the Halal butchers and fish shops on Rye Lane she had a hanky over her face and was grooooaning v audibly.I thought she might die of rage

At work we were always taught to Challenge Racism, but in this case...I just hopped meekly off the bus without saying a dicky bird-case she gave me a clump

Dragonfly74 · 02/07/2009 20:07

I hate using buses, theres always seems to be someone just itching to make a comment about the fact that you have a buggy and yes funnily enough it is normally an elderly person,
but last week I was waiting to catch a bus with my 2 DC one in a buggy and one walking when a lady that I know from mums and tots joined the queue, we got talking and I said if the bus is full i'll fold my buggy down so you can get on (she also had her 2 DC with her the youngest being 5wks).

Anyway the bus arrived and was quite full so I folded my buggy and let my friend get on infront of me, however when she got onto the bus the driver looked down his nose at her and said you'll have to fold it down and nodded toward the buggy, we both looked down the bus and there was room for her with the buggy as it was so she said i'm not folding it down my baby is asleep and there's room anyway, she paid the driver and as she turned to walk down the bus the driver called her a f**king bitch under his breath,

She asked for his name and said she was going to report him. I don't know what happened though I haven't seen her since.

Original poster

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 20:08

weegiemum.

Now I'm wondering if it would be terribly rude to reply with "aren't you old enough to have learnt to be polite" when confronted with "isn't that child old enough..." comments. Regarless of age of rude person?

OP posts:

Original poster

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 20:10

Dragonfly.

That is disgusting.

OP posts:

Kimi · 02/07/2009 20:13

Good for you,Joesmummy, I have to say I do find a lot of older people rude, but saying that since my mother became a 2nd class person wheelchair user I have come across some right bitches with prams too, who do not like a wheelchair in "their" space.

I agree with bags on seats though, and I have been known to remove them and sit down (mostly when PMT)

screamingabdab · 02/07/2009 20:14

I think that the buggy-old person face-off can be quite well explained by the fact that , by and large, the two groups are travelling at the same times of day. Imagine if you tried to travel in rush-hour .....

Overmydeadbody Just to say, quite a number of your residents would have some form of dementia, which does affect the parts of the brain which stop you from saying what's on your mind. Therfore causes rudeness .

Not ALL mind you. That kind of work is very hard, I know

screamingabdab · 02/07/2009 20:17

Buggy/Old person face-off. Now THAT I'd like to see on Sky Sports .....

Original poster

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 20:21

lol screamingabdab

OP posts:

Littlepurpleprincess · 02/07/2009 20:24

pmsl!

I did once queue to get on a bus and there was a fairly young lad in a wheelchair in front of me, so I got DS out of the buggy and folded it up without much thought.

The lad only then, got out of his chair, folded it up and walked on!

Now I appriciate, some people use wheelchairs who can walk sometimes, or a little way, but he could have said he was going to do that before I got DS out and folded the buggy.

Original poster

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 20:27

Now what would the rules be sreamingabdab?

No eye-gouging, below the waist... what about the use of tartan trolley bags?

OP posts:

Original poster

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 20:29

sorry screamingabdad. Just got bit over excited.

OP posts:

Longtalljosie · 02/07/2009 20:30

lol ridley - given the ethnic makeup of Peckham, I have visions of that old lady exhausting herself by having to gurn, roll her eyes etc on a constant basis every time she gets on the bus...

NoseyHelen · 02/07/2009 20:31

I got on a bus yesterday with 10 month old in pushchair and 2 year old. I put the 2 yr old on a seat, the only pair of seats together, that was for those who have greater need and that incidentally had a picture of a pushchair next to it, whilst I put the pushchair in an available space further up. As I went back to 2 year old an older lady, but not infirm, was barging past daughter to get to the spare seat. I said, very politely that I had hoped to sit next to my daughter. She wouldn't look me in the eye but grumbled loudly in a passive-aggressive way, for some time, about the seat being for old people only, which is categorically not what it said.

How very dare she!

toddlerama · 02/07/2009 20:31

When I visited my grandad in an old peoples home I was guaranteed a dose of the rudes for someone even if he was on best behaviour. Apparently it is one of the first signs of dementia to not be able to 'screen' your comments. Although I wonder if we are all just much more polite than back in the day? Maybe in the 40's everyone just barked whatever they fancied at each other and they all just took it? Certainly my mum tells me in the 70's people were much more likely to comment at strangers over their clothes \ hair etc. We're just a more accepting, liberal society these days.

Original poster

JoesMummy09 · 02/07/2009 20:31

Sorry again screamingabdab. Not sceamingabdad or sreamingabdab.

OP posts:

toddlerama · 02/07/2009 20:33

Sorry, 'from someone' not 'for someone'. I didn't go around abusing the residents!!

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