Back to the world of public transport, I had to deal with a woman tonight who was another of those people with a Very Special Bag that required a seat at the expense of paying passengers. I boarded the tram at the end of a long day and noticed a vacant seat beside the window near the back of the tram. I moved toward it and as I approached could see a middle-aged woman had her bag on it. As I arrived, I gave her a few seconds of standing beside the seat staring at her to make her feel sufficiently uncomfortable and move the bags without me needing to ask. That failed so we had a conversation.

Me: Excuse me, can you please move your bag off the seat so I can sit down please?

SPOTD: Really?

Me: Yes. Really. I’m going to the end of the line and I’m not going to stand whilst there’s a bag on a seat.

SPOTD: You’re kidding, right?

Me: Kidding? Hmmm.. Let me think about that for a second … nope. I did only ask you to move your bag, not give birth to a snowmobile. It shouldn’t be that hard, all things considered.

The SPOTD then lifted her bag off the seat, put it on her lap and slid over to the window. I should mention this was a better outcome than I’d expected. I figured she was going to be daft and make me clamber over her to get to the now-vacant seat so I thought there was perhaps hope for her. I was wrong. She sat there muttering away under her breath about me and whilst I could make out snippets of abuse, I couldn’t hear the whole thing.

Me: You know, if you’re going to insult someone, it’s always better to make it audible so they can understand you.

More sub-audible grizzling ensued so I ignored her for a while. Three or four stops later she stood up to alight from the tram and I moved my legs out of the way so she was able to move toward the door. I admit I was a bit relieved because it was a bit tense sitting beside a muttering woman but I figured that was the end of it. Again, I was wrong. As she walked past me to get to the corridor of the tram she made a snide comment despite a clear pathway to the exit.

SPOTD: Now *I* have to get *you* to move.

Me: Never let it be said that I would stand in your road to prevent you from going far away from me.

She didn’t look too happy with my comment so kept berating me.

SPOTD: Look at all that effort you went to. I was only going a few more stops.

I didn’t bother to respond. There was no logical argument I could use since I had no idea how much longer she’d be on the tram when I boarded. In any event, if she was only going a few more stops and was so inconvenienced by me asking her to move, she could have stood up at that time and remained standing for the next 2 minutes if she so chose. When I didn’t respond, she continued her needling.

SPOTD: All that effort. You could have kept standing up for a few more stops and then not had to bother me. You had to fight just to sit down and now you could have just had the seat. You just needed to wait.

Me: I couldn’t agree more. I could paraphrase your argument better though. Would you like me to do that? Here’s the summary - you couldn’t leave soon enough to make me happy.

Naturally that went down like a lead balloon but since her stop had arrived and she had to get off the tram I ended up with the final word. Bah - SPOTDs.

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We decided to head out of the city to check out the Healesville Sanctuary today since it had been over 10 years since we were there. Our initial SPOTD award went to the good folks at www.whereis.com.au who kindly provided driving directions that included a 4WD-only road. Great. Just because it’s the shortest route doesn’t mean it’s the best…

However, when we got to the Sanctuary we found our SPOTD late in the day. The kangaroo enclosure allows animals to mingle with visitors if they wish or retreat to safety behind a rope fence if they so choose. One of the kangaroos had entered the visitor area and was happily standing around being patted by small children and adults alike since it obviously holds a great deal of appeal. People were propping their kids beside the kangaroo (it was only a very small animal) and taking photographs. We stood watching people for a bit before Di snuck in to pat it herself and then retreated back to watch others doing the same thing.

An Indian family arrived and the mother led the children forward to pat the kangaroo while the father took a photo. By then the kangaroo was tiring a little of standing around being patted so began to nibble grass, rapidly losing interest in the photo shoot. Without a shred of discretion the Indian father then reached into the bag of Doritos corn chips tucked under his arm and offered them to the kangaroo as a bribe to pay more attention for the photo. Others in the crowd noticed before I did and called out at him that he shouldn’t do it but he either didn’t hear them or didn’t care. As I was standing quite close to him I reached out and grabbed his arm to lift the inappropriate food well clear of the animal, to which he simply said “oh” and put the corn chip back in the bag.

I know there are SPOTDs who feed wild animals inappropriate foods all the time so he was not the first person to do it. He was, however, the first SPOTD I’ve ever seen offer such food to an animal in an Australian zoo, surrounded by more than 20 people, and he should have expected the response he got.

Categories: SPOTD
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