Ethicth, thpirtualithm and thpeech impedimentth.

[vodkazvictim]

So I'm on a train and I have of course reserved a seat 'cos British trains are derailed by snow. Or leaves. Or straight up incompetance. Or all three.

And predictably enough, there are more people than seats. So I head to my seat and guess what?
There's a small child sitting in it.
Now he's just a small boy, but there's barely enough room or a persons legs, so I can hardly get him to sit on his mothers lap.
I decided just to give him my seat. I mean, what kind of grown man pushes small boys around? It would be despicable.

I get chatting with the people I'm travelling with and both (women) agreed that I should shift the small boy out of his seat.
Talking to someone after the journey, asking if my ethics were too much or other peoples were too little, they asked why I didn't just shift the boy in the knowledge that his mother would give up the seat for him if necessary. Well I flat out just did not think of that one.
Ultimately it wasn't a problem.

But heere is the question I'd like to pose to the board:

What is the state of ethics today?
Were my ethics correct and would it have been wrong to move the boy?

Or is everybody else right and I should simply just have taken the seat that was mine from the small boy?
I got another seat a few stops later.

But something really weird happened last night. I was sleeping and a brown patch of curtain turned white. I went back to sleep, only to be woken by a drawer sliding out of the bedside cabinet.
I think I was just seeing my dreams and being silly, but it seemed so real. What do YOU think?

Speech impediments: I KNOW some board member will have the spare time on there hands to quote this and replace every "s" with a "th".
Go on.
You know you want to.

 

[ApolloBalboa]

It's hard to say what the state of ethics are today. Sometimes people will get up to give you a seat (even one that's rightfully yours), sometimes they won't. Chivalry can be all but dead, depending where you look. As for whether your ethics were right or wrong, that sounds like a question that's already semi-answered. Of course you could have asked the boy to move politely, or just by force, but you were able to find another seat, so aside from maybe not getting the window seat you wanted, nothing bad came of it. You could have just approached the mother and said her child was in your seat and she might have taken care of it, but once again, everything resolved itself regardless of what you did. Ethics are overrated anyway.

I don't know how spiritualistic curtains and drawers can be, but take it however you see fit.

 

[BlueBalls]

Mentally retarded, pregnant, old, young, my own mother; if they're sitting in a seat I especially reserved for myself they will move one way or the other there's no two ways about it and I have absolutely no problem creating a scene on a crowded bus or train to do so. Tears, snot, vomit, tales of how the county priest molested me when I was a child - who also just so happened to be the former bass player for The Bay City Rollers before they got big and he found God - I'll drop them all in order to get what's rightfully mine.

This is the real issue here, our fear of other people. But I, in my infinite wisdom and grace, say no, fuck that shit, it's high time that we as individuals take back what society as a whole takes away from us; our voices! What's mine is mine and if that means I'll have to gut your pregnant girlfriend in front of you on a crowded bus three stops from where I have to get off and show you the twitching foetus for you to get your fat disgusting ass off of my seat then so fucking be it cocksucker!

You should have curb stomped the little fucker. His mother too.

Just sayin' and all that bullshit.

 

[Ulysses31]

You should've just collapsed onto the floor in a foetul position crying hysterically until he moved. Seriously when you got there you should've said ''young man you've got my seat'' (jokingly) so his mother was aware you had reserved that seat and she should have held him on her lap, if she wanted a seat for him she should have reserved one. Kids are too soft nowadays anyway and get spoilt way too much, he aint gonna die if he doesn't get that seat and there's kids in poorer countries travelling on train tops! You probably had that weird dream because you were knackered from standing up on that train instead of sitting like you wanted to, that little punk has a lot to answer for

 

[Ace Bandage]

For the most part, if I pay for a seat somewhere, you bet your happy ass I'm sitting there. I don't care if it's on a train, a plane, or at a basketball game. And I will remove (unless the person is larger than me) or have removed anyone who is currently occupying said seat.

The only way I would consider not doing anything is if the mother looks like she's had a hard day. I'm always going to give a mom a break if I can. That's the hardest job in the world. So if having her little snot nosed kid sit next to her makes her day a little easier, than so be it.

Now, if it's a teenager sitting there, I'd probably practice my human javelin skills...