Entertainment For Lively Minds
Why Am I So Rude?
Inspired by the 'festival rudeness' thread I felt the need to share this sorry tale. On Monday the GLW and I took number one son (10 on the previous day), and daughter (6), to Legoland Windsor for his birthday treat. All well and good. Lots of queues, but also lots of fun.
Post lunch we decided to divide and conquer - the GLW, Grandma and daughter to Driving School, myself and son to Laser Quest. Well we queued for an hour in the dark, sandwiched between ebullient Italians, and queue-ignorant French. We shuffled along, we fought the boredom and held our ground. At last we reached the front of the line - our quest was about to begin.
At this point two yummy mummies with a pram and toddler appeared in our eye line. They had elected to pay extra to jump the queue. Fair enough, I generally have little problem with that. However I was tired and irritable and in no mood to engage in friendly banter with two people who had waltzed to the front of the line due to being richer and more organised than me.
They began to stare at us. They gazed in wonder at the length of the queue behind us. One of them barked at me, 'Is the ride that way?' (The attendant had temporarily wandered off.) My reply: 'I think so.'
Without further incident we were allowed to pass through to the ride (paying queue jumpers first, of course). As we walked in what seemed to be the correct general direction the second yummy mummy barked at me, 'Is it this way?' My reply (rather tetchily I suppose): 'I have no idea, I have never been here before.' I think no more of it. Then the yummy mummy says 'Nice way to teach your child manners.' I'm annoyed, but prepared to let it go. Then she stops and blocks my way with her pram. 'Excuse me,' I say twice, to no avail. She then looks me in the eye and says, 'Why are you so rude?'
I am so furious at this point that I am incapable of an answer. I simply squeeze myself and my son past her pram and head for the ride. After an hour's wait that's all I want to achieve. But, fellow members of the Massive, why am I so rude? Can you tell me?
Was it me who neglected to say 'excuse me' or 'please.' Was it me who called into question the parenting skills of a complete stranger? Was it me who accused another of being 'rude'?
Can anyone explain this behaviour? It just left me angry and perplexed.
Any similar tales of holiday woe?
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It's tricky
It's like when you're on a long haul flight and the person on front reclines their seat to the full extent the moment the bong goes. Do you suffer hours of reading a book two inches from your nose, followed by a neck-mangling upright doze, do you take it out on the person behind you, or do you politely ask the miscreant to reconsider?
My experience is that unless you choose the first course, you will be the one who is unreasonable, and one of the other two will go home telling tales of the absolute cnut they sat behind/in front of on the plane.
So the trick is to measure their shortcomings against yours and decide you can live with the action you take
Snap!
This is one of the things that annoys me more than anything about flying - and there are a lot of things to dislike about the hellish 20 hour flight between Australia and England, believe me.
Like you I'm acutely aware of how truly miserable an experience it is to sit with the back of someone's seat literally in your face for half a day at a stretch. So I refuse to recline my own seat, lest I should pass the misery onto others, unless the row behind is vacant.
I just sit there quietly seething..
The day when airlines
demand that all plane manufacturers make fixed seats with no reclining action at all will be a day when humanity wins a small, but significant victory. Until then, we're stuck with the cnuts in front.
Not quite...
there is this: http://www.gadgetduck.com/goods/kneedefender.html
Genius.
I've ordered a set.
Totally agree re: reclining seats on aircraft.
They afford little if no added comfort to the recliner, and offer nothing but cramped claustrophobic discomfort to the reclinee.
My tactic is simply to bang the back of the reclined seat firmly and repeatedly at random yet frequent intervals until the penny drops. If they say anything in protest at this, I will reply with a carefully judged remark. This will vary, according to the nature of the protest and the nature of the protester, between, "I'm sorry, I have very little space in which to move here due to your chair having been reclined." and "If you weren't so selfish you'd realise you've made my journey deeply unpleasant, and all I can do is to promise you the same in return."
Works every time.
That sounds perfect
on the face of it. But the success of such a plan depends on the recliner eventually coming around to your point of view and seeing the error of his ways.
It may not work quite so well should the miscreant be part of a travelling rugby team or, even worse, a well refreshed stag party.
Ryanair have already done it
and been slammed for cost cutting at the expense of passenger comfort. Airlines can't win: we all lambast them and we (mostly) all still use them.
Two fine, well-adjusted ways of dealing with this
First, you have to give the offender the benefit of the doubt: Maybe they're not aware - blindingly obvious though it may be to you - where their seat back goes when they recline it. To address this, you just make sure that every move you make is conveyed to the small of their back by your knees. Usually they'll figure that they achieve greatest net comfort by restoring their seat to its upright position and losing your knees.
Anyone who endures the knee massage must know perfectly well what they're doing to your comfort, so the only mature response is to drop the little butter or jam container from your meal down behind them next time they lean forwards. The resulting mess on shirt and trousers lasts much longer than the pain in your knees, and of course, your involvement plausibly deniable.
One of my favourite Well-Adjusted Traveller moments was when one such seat back offender made the mistake of unknowingly dropping the folder containing his tickets, passport and currency right at my feet after committing the offence. Said folder somehow found itself in the dark space under my seat, and the offender was last seen checking every pocket and compartment in sight with an increasingly panic-stricken look on his mug.
There must be a word for this
But I don't have a problem with the people that recline. They have every right to do so. I don't recline because it makes stuff all difference and I don't like to give the person behind me a hard time.
But isn't the central issue the fact that the seats are too small and too uncomfortable? We may quibble about what is or isn't acceptable within the realms of what we have - but doesn't that overlook how much we are being exploited generally?
Except that
many people expect to be able to fly pretty much anywhere for not very much money. I'm no aviation economist but I imagine that sending a plane half way around the world is pretty expensive so the only way the airline is going to make any money is by stuffing the plane as full as possible and charging not that much, or by giving everyone a three-seater sofa to themselves and charging a fortune. I guess that as you were in the small, cramped seats you prefer the former.
I'm not sure where the exploitation comes in, unless it's their evil exploitation of people who absolutely have to be somewhere that can only be reached by plane and who don't have much money.
"They have every right to do so."? I think not.
It depends what you mean by a 'right'. Is it actually outlawed by any rule or regulation? Nope. It is physically impossible to recline the seat? Nope. Neither of those facts gives the person any 'right' to do anything at all. They have no 'right' whatsoever to diminish anyone else's life by making their day even more hellish than it already is because they're jammed into cattle class seating on an airliner.
By the same token I can park my car slap bang outside my neighbour's house, making it bloody awkward for him to get his car on or off his drive space; there's no law says I can't and there's no physical impediment to my doing so. To my mind, that does not mean that I have a 'right' to do it.
As you say yourself, you don't do it because it makes life difficult for the person behind you. The problem we might have, with the belligerent sort who will assert they have a 'right', is precisely this inability to distinguish between what you are not prevented from doing, and what you have any right to do unhindered as a decent human being who thinks of others from time to time as well as oneself. Far too many people, cattle class or otherwise, go through life exercising the right to be a twat, don't you think?
With rights
come responsibilities. Most of those keen to assert their rights don't like to acknowledge this.
David Spart writes...
I do feel we are being exploited. Organisations like airlines don't aspire to make a reasonable margin - they expect to make an extraordinarily large profit as a divine right. And through decades of conditioning, we have collectively come to expect and accept atrocious conditions.
Right to recline
Reclining your seat is perfectly reasonable so long as everyone else does it - you just have to make sure you're not the poor bastard in the back row, whose seat back is locked upright hard up against the rear bulkhead. I always recline my seat, partly so I can sleep and partly because it winds up Mrs Oldgit who agrees with all the other commenters here.
What seriously pisses me off though is parents with babies, who invariably sit near me, and who positively encourage their brats to bang incessantly on the pastic tray with a hard plastic spoon. Children under 10 should be packed in the hold baggage with a small oxygen cylinder and a banana. This does them no harm whatsoever and would greatly reduce the stress of modern flying.
www.miserableoldgit.com
I had exactly this...
... on a transatlantic flight last year. The lady in the seat in front of me decided she was going to sit back and relax, thereby wedging me in so I could scarcely move.
I asked the miscreant to reconsider. Rather less than politely, as I recall. I wouldn't dream of doing that on a plane - if I need to sleep, I'll just try and make myself as comfortable as possible without reclining the seat.
The solution
is to go to Disneyland Paris in positively Baltic conditions as we did in January (sick and tired you've been hangin' on me).
What's not to like? Amazing value (kids go free, all meals included), minimal queues, 'Winterval' atmos. So you may have to don clothing that Sir Ranulph Fiennes might find slightly excessive, but that's a minor inconvenience imho.
Theme park in the *shudder* school summer holidays? Are you mad sir?
Let's gloss over the thorny issue of holidays taken during term time ;-)
Seconded
I have been to Alton Towers twice, and it snowed on both occasions. Result. It might be a bit fresh, but compare thatto wasting your sunshiney days in fractious enormo-queues.
The Pirate Ship can seem like more like Shackleton's ship, but the positives definitely outweigh.
Yes you were very rude
for not realising that those great and good folk who buy queue-busting tickets have to be treated like lord and lady muck when they demand your unquestionable devotion.
I think the correct response was "I'm sorry but you are confusing me with someonewho gives a f***uck."
Now don't get me started on receiving (today) tellingbone calls where you can hear someone in a call centre talking in the background but no amount of helloing and loud whistling fails to attract their attention in 4 minutes until the line goes dead. In exasperation I dial 1471 and ring up the twonks (NCO Europe) and ask what they are playing at. The response? "What is your reference number?" BUT YOU COLD-CALLED ME YOU BASTARDS!. Calm calm.
I have found that this one works
Since I am on the Telephone Preference Service AND BT Privacy or whatever it is called, so if I get these calls I assume they are not reputable, probably being from a call centre who have no care about such things , usually abroad, with limited English, and indeed have no sanction.
So, to every question I reply as follows :
"I have no money".
"I have no money".
"I have no money".
"I have no money".
They soon bugger off, never to be heard of again.
I try to stay calm but it never works
We have just installed a second line with Virgin Media and within days we realised the number used to belong to someone else who gave it up last year. A Lloyds Bank call centre in Outer Mongolia rang, I politely explained the situation and got the question "well can you tell me her new number?" and "do you know where she has moved to?"
"DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?" Oh dear. Don't get me going on the calls from "Microsoft".
Telephone fun.
I used to keep a small cassette player by the phone with a recording of the clocks from "Dark Side of the Moon" on it.Any cold callers were treated to a blast of that.Works a treat.Nowadays my preferred method is to talk incomprehensible bullshit to them till they give up,something like this,Bingo spatula pipe drumming,have you rainy feet loft?Me drink fork target spring.This also works a treat and amuses the f*ck out of me.
Oh yes
I've had the "just because I've got ther old number doesn't mean.. Oh work it out for yourself" conversation many times.
As I might have reported before, after abandoning my Sky subscription I got fed up that they kept calling me to get me to come back. So when asked "how are doing without Sky?" I replied "oh it's wonderful, I no longer spend hours watching programmes of little interest and value for the sake of it, I've now got hours free to do interesting things, read books and improve myself. I'm a new man. Free I tells ya, free!" they never called back.
As I think I also reported, it's not true of course. I now just wate my time on the Internet instead.
I bet they were the kind of
middle class mothers who pollute all other parents' existances by calling to their children in high pitched commands like they are treasured pets, usually as said 'liddle rascal' is thumping some unsuspecting cove who was minding their own business.
You know the kind: "Benji, here Benji, come here Benji and get a piece of choccy, good boy, liddle rascal' etc etc.
Give me strength. One of this Converse-clad odious urban tribe tormented me until recently - everywhere I went with our girl (school, swimming, rugby, church) she was there with her Gap catalogue-styled demon progeny running wild while constantly doled out unwarranted Green & Black's (natch) Fair Trade treats.
I wanted to scream: 'Stop talking to that child like he's a naughtyt Jack Russell puppy and discipline him.' I never did, nor did she.
You did well not to unload verbally with both barrels.
*and relaxes*
Harry, Poppy & Tom
A while back I was loading my shopping from the conveyor in Sainsbury's. Three kids, with those names, belonging to a mummy at the next checkout were pissing about, banging into to me. I got fed up and told them loudly to behave. At this mummy launches into a tirade, outraged that I had dared to try and instil a little discipline into her kids. Apparently their banging into me was in my imagination as she had been watching them the whole time; they were behaving impeccably, while she apparently filled her shopping into bags with magic.
I've had a few families like that at my practice.
The difference being that the kids pissing about can collide with dental nurses carrying trays of very hot, very sharp instruments. Or with lots of big, expensive surgery kit. Any of which can cause a lot of damage to small kids. I ask the kids, politely, if they can keep from running around, pointing out to mum (it is ALWAYS mum. Rarely is there pissing about when dad's around) that it's in the interest of their own safety. The second time they get shouted at. Loudly. And with finger-pointing. And mum is told, in no uncertain terms, that if Milo or Jocasta find themselves with a Howarth's Periosteal Elevator buried in their head, it's their problem, not mine. At which point mum gets the hint. Twice, though, mothers have objected to their little darlings having their spirit of free expression impeded in such a way and having the nasty man shout at them and have swept out in high dudgeon, telling me that they will be taking their business elsewhere. "Good!" I said to one and the other, I am pleased to announce, I told to close the door on her way out.
I like you
There is a major difference between kids being a bit high spirited and, well, charmingly childlike, and being what can best be described as annoying little bastards. I would hope if my daughter were behaving more like the latter someone would give me a polite reminder, as I'm sure that's all it would need.
Anyone who tells them as much is alright in my book.
'Is It Safe'?
That is surely all you need to say to the parents when their spawn is running amok
Once upon a time
...if I was asked the question "Smoking or non-smoking" my reply would be, after glancing across the concourse, "Not fussed, but can I have Non-Children".
The reaction from the Waiting Staff would be either that I was Evil Incarnate, or Wisdom Personified.
On the one hand, the reaction is I Blame The Parents.
On the other, with hindsight, I see now that there are certain places that harassed parents take their kids because a) the kids are allowed in , and b) they are attempting, it may seem vainly, to teach the kids how to behave in a public setting. Clearly some parents fail at the first hurdle and give up completely, but whether they succeed or fail you go there (Pizza Hut and pubs with bouncy castles being the most obvious examples) under extreme caution. Not always possible, I know.
Give it a few years and said offspring will almost certainly grow up gorgeous and graceful and considerate , but until then intolerant dinkies/singletons (like me, then) should either take it on the chin or go elsewhere.
Though supermarkets and festivals are something else again. And there really is no legislating for total fuckwit parents.
Meh....
....if the kids get hurt, we'll sue!
Terror tots in Tesco
This topic came up a while back. I was eventually persuaded that parents should encourage their kids to explore the boundaries of what is safe and acceptable behaviour - trouble is, it's impossible to tell which parents are doing that and which are just letting the little fuckers run wild.
Howarth's Periosteal Elevator
Weren't they an offshoot of Aspidistra Hatstand?
Howarth was the bass player
he left to form his own band. The subsequent globe-rogering success of HPE merely proves the point about bass players and their own bands.
c.f. Woody Woodmansey's U-Boat, Jack Lancaster's Bomber, etc
John Wetton
Asia... nah yer right
Oh Fuck off Adman
and quit your moaning.
(tongue/cheek)
Have an arrow
and a punch up the bracket...!
People tend to be both..
..more overly prickly and unnecessarily rude these days.
Sympathy's with you Adman
I've never been keen on children having to wait and que longer than those with parents who can afford to 'push in'. I know it's different as adults and we pay for what we get but I'm not sure I would feel that good taking my kids to the front of the que as we had paid more. It doesn't seem a good example to them.
Will those kids think they deserve to jump the que all the time in future? Will they look down on others with less money?
Would we put up with the same in a school dinner hall? Rich kids get better potions and get to eat first?
'Rich kids get better potions'?
What, like, at Hogwarts?
(Backs away slowly, making pacifying gestures)
Oh! Any excuse to post Rich Kids on TOTP
What a horrible concept
to be able to pay to jump the queue. I know at Disneyland Paris you can get a priority pass, but the supposed reason for such is for children with medical issues.
We went there 3 years ago and although our oldest is Autistic and finds queues difficult we still felt it was a bit out of order to get one of those passes. Other children stood patiently whilst he went up down the rows of left behind buggies folding them up.
Back to the original post - surely it is rude to ask someone "why are you so rude?"
Best place for queueing
We were standing outside the Reichstag in Berlin on a boiling hot day a couple of years ago, and a very nice guide went down the queue and allowed all of us with kids to go in via a side entrance and elevator. No cost, no elitism...can't imagine it happening here though.
Difficult to say...
whether or not you were being rude, Adman. In the first instance you mention being unwilling to engage in 'friendly banter' but then the yummy mummy 'barks' at you, which shifts the blame from you to her. So what was it? Was she being friendly and you brushed her off? In which case it was hardly her fault that you were having a bad time of it, and yes, you probably were being rude. Or was she addressing you as though talking to an underling? In which case it was you that gave her a lesson in manners. And well done you.
Personally, I think you want to believe it's the latter, but the the fact that you're seeking affirmation from the Massive makes you suspect the former.
You read my post with an admirably
forensic eye, Albert. The 'banter' wasn't really 'friendly' and that was ill expressed on my part. I was being addressed as if I were an underling.
I'm not seeking affirmation from anyone - I just wanted to get it off my chest and stop seething about it.
I do, however appreciate all the supportive and amusing comments on the thread.
I'm not perfect, I get things wrong, but generally I rub along well with most of the human race. The fact is that in my professional life (teacher) and home life (father of two) I have to be patient and diplomatic most of the time - in my down time I don't have the capacity to deal with situations like the one I described above terribly well. I'm used to children behaving like children, but when adults start doing it, it throws me.
Dougie J is correct - I must be mad to have tackled Legoland in the summer holidays. :)
I was there the other day, too.
Legoland? Waspland, more like. Thank God they serve beer I say; after a three-pint lunch I stopped complaining and actually began to enjoy myself.
Wasps and Beer and Bad Language
Several years ago I was drinking outside a pub with my mate and a wasp approached. This pub was fairly plagued with them and I had a newspaper with me so the contest was fairly one-sided after it had stung me. Through the pain I shouted and swatted the creature, using some choice terms as my friend chortled away. Unbeknownst to me a young family had sat down at the table behind and father had gone into the bar whilst his two kids sat patiently at another picnic table. One dead wasp later I had calmed down a bit, and turned round to see Dad emerge from the pub with his beer and two orange juices. Naturally the orange juice attracted another wasp and as I turned back to my pint I heard a small voice pipe up:
"Piss off you stripy little bastard"
Followed immediately by an adult voice:
"WHERE did you get that language, Jocasta?"
I finished my pint very quickly.
Went to Waspland today
My poor daughter got stung twice on the leg.
I went to Waspland
and I got stung as I went in - 25 quid a ticket!
Perception is reality
Case for the defence...
Might it have been that your quite understandable end-of-tether frame of mind was expressed in your face and tone of voice, without you realising it? I have one of those faces that cannot disguise worry, sorrow, pissedoffness, maybe you do too?
She also was probably p-ed off that she had spent an extra £10 per person on the fast-pass and got no service at the crucial time and met a cheesed-off you.
You probably all needed a sit down and a GnT.
Friend...
...was on a train a few years back and a *lovely* boy of about six was running up and down the aisle and jumping on the seats. Requests to his mother to ask him to stop, were met with the response "He's just expressing himself".
When the train pulled into a station, said boy would open the doors jump on the platform and then jump back onto the train. Numerous times. The guard came down to ask the boy's mum to get him to stop. Reaction was "He's just expressing himself". And at the next few stops he carried on playing with the doors.
Then they stopped again and the boy opened the doors and jumped onto the platform. Except this time the train wasn't hanging around and with a beep, the doors closed and the train pulled off.
The boy's mother had a fit and suddenly was aware of her son, who was disappearing into the distance. She said to anyone who was listening "why didn't you stop him?" To which the carriage piped up, almost as one, "He's just expressing himself"...
Thank you stevev
That has made my day!
That reminded me of this
Call centres that ring you
Call centres that ring you up and say you previously completed a survey to start the conversation. There was never a survey completed - dishonest practice.
Also is cold calling allowed from overseas - I get very rude with them nowadays - great fun!
South Norwood to London Bridge
Standing on a crowded platform at 7.30am a few years ago I stood back and let 99% of passengers get on the train until there was just a young man with a bike and me on said platform. I went to get on the train before him but he had had enough of waiting and blocked me with his his bike. "FUCK YOU MAN, AND FUCK YOUR MUM!" I was so startled at this I started laughing, and couldn't stop. He fixed me with an evil glare until New Cross Gate where he got off, and bellowed "FUCK YOUR FAMILY", which set me off laughing again, uncontrollably, until London Bridge. Mind you, I might not have been laughing so hard if I had to get off at New Cross Gate, or if he didn't have a bike. This particular train line seems to set people off; on another occasion coming in the opposite direction a cretin was bellowing into his phone at 1000 decibels oblivious to the tuts from fellow passengers. I was tired and irritable and waited until my stop to shout at him "Why don't you shut the FUCK UP?" Whereupon a (very) elderly woman stood up at the back of the carriage stood up and screamed at me "No, why don't YOU shut the fuck up young man!" I give up.
There is nowhere in the world that
I want to go to so badly that I would ever contemplate taking my kids on a plane. To inflict them on anyone else when I can only just bear their company just isn't right. In the face of the rudeness of others I used to find I would think of a witty and killing response about three minutes too late. The one phrase I can always remember and have used on a number of occasions now is 'FUCK OFF'.
Harry...
We could all learn something from your warm consideration for your fellow man, tempered with occasional spasms of brusque psychosis. Bravo, sir.
to the original post and poster
Adman, you showed remarkable restraint: woman leaning out of tent at foot height, talking bollocks
I'd've kicked her in the face and calmly waited for the mayhem to start