This one comes to us from Stef who rides the LSE.
A father and his two daughters board at Union, along with two very large Minions I presume were won as prizes from some midway ghetto game and head upstairs. Dad decides that each Minion gets a seat so he puts the two of them side by side in a quad and then he and one daughter sit opposite of them, and the other daughter wondered off downstairs.
As you know CJ, the LSE can get quite full, especially the 4:07 pm train, which I was on. People are boarding and giving the WTF look as they look for seats, but no one is asking dad to move the minions. Both he and his daughter have their noses deep into their iPhones.
It's now 4:03 pm and it's becoming standing room only and the Quiet Zone is now full. The Minions still have their seats and at 4:05 pm, a very pregnant lady makes her way upstairs. She surveys the seats and her eyes zero in on the Minions. She makes a face and starts to walk down the aisle towards the quad. The doors are closing message is made and she stands right beside the seats with the Minions and stares at the dad. He's busy looking at his phone. His daughter is playing some game, no headphones, that's making all kinds of blips and bleeps. She looks up. The pregnant lady looks at her. The daughter goes back to her game.
The pregnant lady then asks, loud enough that I can hear her from where I'm sitting, if the Minions have tickets for the seats. The dad looks up. "Pardon?" He asks.
"Did you buy tickets for your guests, here," she asks him. He looks at the Minions. "Uh... no..."
The pregnant lady then leans forward, grabs a Minion and sits down. She passes the Minion to the dad. He takes it from her with an incredulous look on his face.
"Relax," he says to her. "It's been a long day for us and we're getting off at Danforth, so you don't need to be rude," he says, roughly putting the Minion on the floor.
Pregnant lady ignores him as she adjusts herself and looks in her purse.
"Did you hear what I said?" The Dad asks her. His daughter tells him to be quiet. He tells her to be quiet.
Pregnant lady puts in her earbuds.
"I don't care about your long day, your feelings, or your soon to be landfill prize. Please don't talk to me anymore." Pregnant lady says to him and she closes her eyes.
Dad was STEAMING. He starts griping to any one of us who will listen, so finally I said, "Sir, this is the Quiet Zone. If you want to continue your tantrum, you can go downstairs."
He doesn't quit. As we approach Danforth, he tells the whole coach what a bunch of "fucking losers" we are and he huffs his way down the stairs with his carnival prizes, and yells out for the other daughter to get over to where he is.
Stay classy.
22 comments:
Bad manners all around here.
Maybe classy should be klassy.
Well the good news is at least the baby will have a classy mama. Pregnant lady rocks!
I wouldn't have been standing in the aisle while a stuffed toy had a seat. I would have leaned over and politely asked him to move the stuffed toy, please. If I went ignored, then the toy would have ended up in the aisle (go fetch buddy). Guarantee I wouldn't be ignored then. I don't ask twice and I have never had to.
Pity the poor fool that tries to put down a pregnant lady at the end of a working day.
I like her already. She showed class, tolerance and grace even though she was confronting an asshole.
My faith in humanity went back up a notch.
Thou shalt not offend any trophy pricks or trophy cunts in any way.
Even when they lay undue claims to any public or commercial spaces.
P.C. Doctrine #30,994 (or is it #30,995?)
Soon to be landfill prize makes me giggle out loud every time I read it.
Because it's true.
Standing O to the pregnant lady. A class act all the way.
Doesn't matter how long a day was, what your stop is, what matters is that you treat people with courtesy. Something this "father" needs to learn.
Further to Anonymous 11:59 above....
1. Anonymous sets the landfill prize up in the aisle
2. And.....with CJ on commentary.... "The kick is good!"
Punt for the win!
No idea why they made the upper level the QZ, since that's the first place kids want to sit. It's just a fact of life while the CNE is on so I just wear my ear buds and crank the volume up a couple of notches higher than usual. The seat thing is another matter, and obviously humans always take precedent over stuffed toys. But I'll just note that the rest of the coach (presumably full of GO Train regulars) didn't give up their seat for the pregnant woman, including the person writing the note. Sometimes I feel like the only person willing to give up my seat; other regulars could watch someone crawling down the isle on bloody stumps and they'd still stay firmly planted to their seats, faces buried in their phones to avoid the shame of eye contact with an obviously more deserving rider.
i think the dad is an idiot for wasting money on winning those stupid annoying things, i saw those stupid things litter the ripoff midway game stalls, you never win any of them unless you want to waste money, which is why i just walk by them and ignore them asking to come play their stupid games (btw saying "hey stretch! come play! makes me ignore you more....)
Stef here. I was more than prepared to give up my seat if things got ugly but I really wanted to see how the situation played out. Because then I would have had to destroy that Minion to get my own seat and we wouldn't want that now, would we?
Hey I was on the same coach. You forgot the part where he said he was there first and if she wanted a seat she should have arrived earlier!!! I was standing wearing the red polo shirt. I was cheering the lady in my head. That took a lot of balls
Beyond stupid. Yet another example why there should be GO enforcement officers, all it takes is one 'hot head' to have a bad reaction and who knows what'll happen. For the amount of money we, as commuters, pay we should not be the ones who have to tell people we'd like a seat. The father was an idiot and a really bad example to his kids wholl, no doubt, turn out just as rude if not ruder than him.
The immediate escalation to rage and personal attacks - check!
This is what happens when a false and inflated sense of entitlement that exhibits itself in boorish behaviour is confronted.
The guy knows that he has no real rational reason or right or excuse to act like a fuckwad, but he also knows that any challenge to his fuckwadhood is an existential threat to his ability to continue being a fuckwad.
So he immediately progresses to nasty displays of petulance, anger and rage cuz - he's got nothing else.
You see this with smokers a lot...
The only part of this story that I did not like, was the fact that no one spoke up once asshat decided to start hassling the pregnant lady. As soon as he said "I'm only going to Danforth so you don't need to be rude" people should have been leaping to her side in polite, but large numbers.
Go Pregnant Woman Go! She is going to raise her kid right unlike Mr.Minionseat. I witnessed some real winners at Exhibition Place GO last night smoking right beneath a no smoking sign while their kid was in his stroller.
Clearly one cannot condone or defend the behavior of the man. However, one might consider that the pregnant woman could have asked politely for a seat rather than using a sarcastic approach. Not to say that I haven't been tempted to use this line myself but have always refrained. Consider the response: "Yes, as a matter of fact I did." Would she then feel entitled to ask for proof? On what basis? Are we all 'deputized' to go around asking for POP? Or what if he actually had paid for the seats - would the discussion end there? Is it even permissible to pay for an inanimate object to ride in it's own seat? How about a simple and polite "Excuse me, would you mind moving the toys so I can sit down?" Proceed from there accordingly.
@ANON [6:34pm] I agree with your approach. The guy shouldn't have put those toys on the seats. If I wanted to sit there I would have started with a civil approach and went from there. Who knows the whole thing could have finished peacefully.
People should be taught a lesson but never liked the lynch mob mentality... thats just me :)
The saddest thing about this is that the kids will now have absorbed their father's behaviour, and will think that its OK to go off the deep end like that. In situations such as that, I like to start recording the event on my smartphone and at some point announce that I'll be posting it on youtube, with the hope that it goes viral.
I think the pregnant lady could have started off nicer, but chances are that if he was ignorant enough to place 2 large minions in seats that were in demand for real people he had no consideration anyway. I hate the sense of entitlement on the GO Train these days. I've say beside people who have used the seat next to them to store their purse, jacket,and even coffee cup while tons of people get on the GO and walk past it, people who take up half a quad for their huge suitcases, they are all ignorant.
Awesome story go pregnant woman whoever you are. I hate riding the GO during the EX! Always a lot of douchery that goes on.
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