Went out for a walk this evening as I generally do after finishing work. Went a different way tonight, it's a busy road leading to the town centre, it's a busy four lane dual carriageway with a barrier in the middle and pedestrian crossing points, but the bit where I was walking doesn't have any crossing points. It's a series of old cottages with front doors opening direct onto the pavement. The pavement is quite wide but because the people who live there have nowhere to park, quite often cars are parked on the pavement.
As I'm walking down I can see a young woman standing on the pavement. Her mate has parked up on the pavement and the passenger door is open, the woman is standing blocking the pavement leaning down and chatting to her mate through the open door. This is Scotland so being able to meet people outside who aren't from your household doesn't start until next week, but as is usual most people have been ignoring this pretty much since lockdown started. I don't really mind unless it impacts me directly and from the look of it, this is going to be one of those occasions.
She can see me walking down the pavement but makes no attempt to move. As I squeeze by just touching her I say “2 metres”. She turns round and points to her friend in the car and says “but we work together”. Like that makes it ok.
So I stop and say, “not HER, what about ME? You’re blocking the pavement, you saw me coming, you made no attempt to get out of the way”. And she says “Just walk in the road”. Several cars whizz past. The speed limit is 40 and they come round a blind corner at that point. Not ideal. And I said, “You want me to walk in road on a busy dual carriageway just so you can chat to your mate?"
So she says “stop making a fuss, it’s just the flu”. I am very afraid to say that at that point I called her a nasty selfish c*nt. She and her mate were laughing and jeering as I walked down the road. I am still very angry but glad I stood up for myself.
I really don't care whether people want to bent the rules to suit themselves as long as I am not involved. I don't want to get up close to anyone right now but I'm not going to stay indoors when I am allowed to go out for a walk. I won't be going that way again, but I do think that even without Coronavirus people do have the right to be able to walk down a pavement near a busy road and not tiptoe around others so they can enjoy a social life with their mates.
AIBU?