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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To shout at someone parking parent & child space with NO CHILD IN CAR

132 replies

ElleBing · 27/03/2010 07:33

Right, sorry for the incoming rant but I am STILL furious about this...

Pulled up in supermarket carpark yesterday with DS and 6 month old niece in back of car. It's pouring with rain so I pull into the parent/child bay looking for a space. There's one in sight so I drive towards it only to be beaten by a big, fat BMW driving against the one-way system! "Oh well" I think and go to drive off UNTIL a couple with no kid get out of the car. I did get angry straight away. Why the fuck should the LOs get soaked because they're too lazy to park elsewhere? I wound my window down and said "you do know you're supposed to have a child to park in parent and child?" the woman leaned in really aggressively telling me that her son was inside the supermarket with his grandma (wtf?) So I let it go...

Half an hour later, I'm pushing LOs round in trolley when I see that couple, with no kid. She knew I'd seen but I didn't say anything. Next thing I know, I'm looking at the baking potatoes and the deranged cunt is shoving her mobile phone in my face showing me a picture of her DS. "THAT'S MY SON!" I was like "And? I've got a picture of my disabled MIL on MY phone. Doesn't mean I'd park in a disabled space without her in the car!" The she started trying to intimidate me (she was a lot bigger than me) by towering over me repeatedly saying "DON'T question ME" Who the fuck does she think she is? I could feel myself getting to boiling point so I very calmly told her to fuck off (don't think LOs heard!) and walked off.

I am STILL angry about this today. AIBU? If I'd been caught out doing something like that, I'd think "fair enough" and move on, NOT start verbally attacking the person who caught me out. I felt like telling her that she could use the extra walk from the normal spaces to shift some fat off her arse but that would just be puerile, wouldn't it?

OP posts:

PuppyMonkey · 27/03/2010 07:37

I think I've got deja vu! This thread just won't go away will it?

valleyqueen · 27/03/2010 07:40

YANBU but I think you need to let it go and not let yourself be wound up by people like this.

Puppymonkey it never will as long as there are m&b spaces

Original poster

ElleBing · 27/03/2010 07:42

Sorry, I DID think when I was posting it that it might be a popular subject but I am a noobie ergo I am excused

TBH, I just wanted to rant about the stupid fat cunt. If it had been a simple case of someone just parking in P&C with no child I'd have forgotten about it by now but the sheer brass neck of this woman has got me wound up. Pathetic, I know. I lay awake last night thinking up witty repostes I COULD have said to her if I'd been quicker lol.

OP posts:

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 27/03/2010 07:45

YANBU
I had a huge go at a couple who did this to me (I was PMTing). They said they had a car seat in their car so they could use the space. But their child was elsewhere. I yelled at the guy that he was lazy and ignorant and ended up losing the moral high ground by telling him to fuck off.

I totally get that P&C places are a privilege, not a right, and do not in any way equate to disabled spaces, but it still ticks me off massively when I see people using them who shouldn't be. The simple fact is that the spaces are wider to allow children in trolleys to be tucked down the side of the car while unloading, not stuck in the road, and to get toddlers/car seats out without breaking your neck or bashing the child. Supermarkets are happy to provide this to parents - why should some other lazy fucker nick a spot?

I think this would be easily solved by putting P&C places further away from the entrance. We do not need them to be right by the entrance, we just need them to be wider.

wahwah · 27/03/2010 07:46

Get the bloody shop to sort it out, don't get into it with mutters!

Actually this stuff does drive me mad, people should be considerate according to need and there IS a need for these spaces. And before anyone gets all ranty about disability parking versus P&C spaces, I am a blue badge holder and I still think wrangling babies and toddlers into shops needs help. Yes, it's called empathy, people.

Peaceflower · 27/03/2010 07:49

Good morning, hope you have calmed down now.

After years of customers abusing the use of these spaces, my local Sainsburys have introduced a £50 charge for those caught. The trolley jockeys in the carpark monitor the disabled and "parent and young children" spaces.

This has really helped, and perhaps if we all complained to customer services, all supermarkets will introduce fines!

Original poster

ElleBing · 27/03/2010 07:52

Whilst all this was going on, her poor DH was just stood shuffling his feet, red-faced. If I'D behaved like that in public, mine would have told me to reel my neck in

OP posts:

Triggles · 27/03/2010 07:52

We saw a male and female yesterday driving a large white work truck with a flatbed. Obviously no space for a child, and when they got out of the vehicle, no child. They did park in parent and child parking, which did annoy me. DH could tell I was annoyed by it (ok, I was bitching a bit), and he said "look, just let it go, karma'll come back around on them." Sure enough, we went back out to the car, and after getting in, the sky opened up and the rain was bucketing... as they were running to their truck, getting soaked. Made me feel a bit better.

LucyM6 · 27/03/2010 07:52

yes always tell the shop - some have FINES
I nearly got beaten up by a 20 something bloke in a cheap suit, for the same reason, so now I just glare and sometimes if I am really wound up I tell customer services and they send their parking person out to slap a ticket on.

tres gratifying.

LucyM6 · 27/03/2010 07:54

elle I guess she would have lamped him if he had,.

Goblinchild · 27/03/2010 07:57

I agree with kat2907, put the P&C spaces further away from the store, and they won't be as desirable to everyone any more.
Getting the store to patrol and fine is good, but I've seen users yell and scream at the teenagers who have that job at our local superstore, and refuse to co-operate.

Bumblingbovine · 27/03/2010 08:00

Well I have parked in m&t space a few times ouple of times in the past when ds was smaller and I was meeting dh in a supermarket where he has DS and was leaving him with me to do the shopping. I remember distinctly thinking about mumsnetters as I parked in the mother and child parking bays and got out of the car without a child with me!! I almost ran into the supermarket in case anyone said anything to me

Once I even arranged to meet dh and ds in the usual way and got a call from dh (once I was in the supermarket and had started shopping) that he was taking ds home as he had been sick. So I was left the shop with my shopping, parked in a m&t space and NO CHILD. I and sort of commando ran to the car and lept in. I did feel very self-conscious and had no obvious reason to have parked in the space. Luckily no-one shouted at me.

I think in this case the person taking the space was probably taking the p**s but tbh I wonder how I would have explained myself believeably if someone had asked me.

DH and my childcare, working, shopping with ds arrangements were complicated and not really of any interest to anyone else but I was expecting to shop with ds and to go home with him.

If I had been confronted I might have just felt like I couldn't be bothered to explain and it also might have sounded not true (though it was true) so I might have got defensive too, especially if approached agressively.

fiveisanawfullybignumber · 27/03/2010 08:06

My local Tesco's won't do anything about it, but asda in the nearest City do clamp people who park where they shouldn't. Needless to say I do my big once a month stock up there.

Unfortunately these people are everywhere, and I've realised that the only person it will upset is you if challenge them.

Have thought about getting stickers printed asking if they realise how selfish they are being, you know the type that won't come off easily (we need an evil emoticon.) However I/you could be charged with criminal damage for this.

lisad123wantsherquoteinDM · 27/03/2010 08:06

well TBH I wouldnt have done it, all thats happened as a result is you have been stalked round a supermarket, yelled and abused at in a shop and then sworn back infornt of the kiddies. hardly worth it for carpark space! more importment things than that and hat does it teach kids?? its ok to yell at stranger in street

NonnoMum · 27/03/2010 08:07

Yes - the spaces din't need to be right next to the store, just v wide, so we don't swing open our car doors and bash the BMWs when we are shifting the DCs in and out of car seats...

Condensedmilkaddict · 27/03/2010 08:12

YANBU
What an awful situation. I think your reply about your MIL was great though.

I get frustrated when I see people using the trolleys meant for babies and they put their bread in the baby capsule part.

Longtalljosie · 27/03/2010 08:17

Yeah they're bloody aggressive when challenged, aren't they? I had similar with a woman in a multistorey the other day. Child seat in car but no child... when I challenged her she went ballistic, yelling "Unlike you, I work" (I am on mat leave and it was 9ish on a week day) She obviously justified it to herself by thinking she was more important than SAHMs...

ImSoNotTelling · 27/03/2010 08:24

OP she sounds terrifying. It's not so much about the space as the fact she was utterly unhinged. Like others say if it's a place with fines then just shop them!

Longtalljosie my old boss parked in a P&C space once, we were out getting lunch in the middle of a work thing. She had her DC seat in the back. Even though I was childless at the time and thus had yet to discover MN and the full extent of feeling about P&C spaces, I was still pretty and think I looked at her a bit . She said "well x's seat is there and looked smug and legged it into the shops.

I still don't understand why people do it. I mean the normal spaces aren't exactly 14 miles away. Weird.

porcamiseria · 27/03/2010 08:57

shes a fucking twat , fancy showing you the photo of her kid! anyway you told her where to go, dust it!!!!

canucktraveler · 27/03/2010 09:04

YANBU - People like this get my goat as well. Common courtesy and manners are seriously shot! I can't stand rudeness on this level. Did her going on and on to you, when she didn't have a leg to stand on make her feel better?? What a weirdo!

runnybottom · 27/03/2010 09:31

I think you need anger management classes OP. Maybe there is a reason you attract nutters?

ScaredOfEverything · 27/03/2010 09:32

Im just not sure I can get over the "c-bomb" in the OP to be honest. I can just about handle "fuck" but that is a bit much for me of a Saturday morning!

cornsilk · 27/03/2010 09:34

'I just wanted to rant about the stupid fat cunt.'
You're quite the charmer Ellebing.

BetsyLittleson · 27/03/2010 09:37

It's a parking space.

Seriously, is there any need to be calling people fucking twats and cunts over a poxy bloody parking space?

Newsflash, it's not a legal right. It's a marketing ploy and a perk.

2shoeskickedtheeasterbunny · 27/03/2010 09:39

good grief, do people really get this wound up, just incase a baby gets wet!!!!!

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