Entitled Parents

EP wants BOTH our Switch systems?

So my Girlfriend and I recently got engaged, and rather than telling my parents over the phone, we went up to visit them. It's a long trip from where we live to my parents (about 5 hours), so rather than drive we booked train tickets, we traveled up there with no issues and had a lovely weekend with my folks who couldn't be happier about the news.

Then came time to return home. We boarded the train, and like with our trip down, the two of use had our Nintendo Switches. The first hour was fine, we'd been playing Smash and decided to swap out to Mario Kart. The train was pulling into it's next station and a bunch of passengers got on. A Woman, EP (mid-late 30's), and her son, EC (6 or 7), sat on the chairs on the other side of the isle from us. At first nothing, the train moved on from the station then a few minutes passed and I glance and see that EC is staring at us from his seat. He notices me and then turns to his Mum and shouts.EC: "MUM, I'M BORED."EP: "Did you bring your game like I told you?"EC: "NO, I FORGOT IT. THEY HAVE GAMES, GET ME THERES."

EP tries to get our attention, at first asking fairly politely if she could borrow one of our Switches. I say sorry, but we're playing them, and that I'm not particularly comfortable borrowing my stuff to strangers and we go back to our game.

That's when things turned ugly, EC at this point has started crying and kicking the seat in front of him, thankfully no one is sitting in it. That's when she starts shouting at us.

EP: "SEE WHAT HE'S DOING NOW? THIS IS YOUR FAULT"ME: "I'm sorry, but how is it my fault you can't control your kid?"GF: "Yeah, you should have made sure to pack stuff for him to do, if you knew you were bringing him on a long trip."EP: "I TOLD HIM TO BUT HE FORGOT"ME: "Again, not our fault. You should have made sure he had it, you can't expect a little kid to remember to grab stuff"

At this point she was ranting and raving, a lot of which I could barely understand over the kids screaming, but then I did hear.

EP: "WHAT DO PEOPLE YOU AGE EVEN HAVE THESE GAMES FOR ANYWAY? YOU DON'T NEED THEM. IF ANYTHING YOU SHOULD BE LETTING US USE BOTH OF THEM SO I CAN PLAY WITH MY SON"ME: "Sorry, by we enjoy these games. One of the reasons we're even traveling by train is as an excuse so we can play them together, now can you please just leave us alone."

In this time I noticed at least one passenger point out the confrontation to the Conductor, who been keeping an eye on the situation, but hasn't yet said anything or stepped in.

Thankfully at this time EP has shut up, and even the EC had started to calm down. By this point my GF and I had gotten to the point where we couldn't be bothered to continue with Mario Kart, so we both pull our Switch cases out of our bags and proceed to pick what to play next, and deciding to go back to Smash to rid us both of some of the built up frustration from the encounter.

Now this next part I'll admit I should have seen coming, and was partly my fault for leaving it in a place EC could reach. But he must have seen that I was keeping the case for my Switch, which had all the games I'd brought on the trip, in my rucksack, that was hanging on the arm of my seat. Because suddenly I felt the bag move and hit my leg a few times, at first I just thought it was the train moving, but as I glanced over, there was EC holding my Switch case pulling out the carts.

ME: "Hey, tell him to give that back, or I'll come over there and take it."EP: "DON'T YOU DARE THREATEN MY SON."ME: "YOUR SON IS A THIEF. GIVE IT BACK NOW!"EP: "Why? You're not playing these games, let him look?"ME: "There are over £500 worth of games in that case, give me them NOW before he loses them."

It was at this point that the sweetest piece of revenge happened. EC LICKED one of the Switch carts, he then started to scream in terror. Now for those who don't know, due to the small size of the Switch carts, Nintendo coats them in a non-toxic Bittering agent know as Denatonium Benzoate, to discourage small children from eating them and naturally it tastes AWFUL. EP started screaming about how we'd poisoned her child, and the Conductor finally came and stepped in.

EP, tried to play the victim, saying we'd stolen both of there Switch systems and then tried to kill her son by poisoning him, and demanded they phone the police but the Conductor wasn't having any of it, as he'd been given the same report by multiple passengers that this mother and son where harassing us. He made her give us back my Switch case and games and he made the decision to remove them from the train at the next stop and make her wait for another one, all, while her kid was still screamed in terror from the awful taste licking the cart, had provided (that taste last quite a while on your tongue).

The rest of the trip was extremely pleasant. The Conductor couldn't do enough for us, and at the stop after the one EP and EC where forced to get off at, a mother and her daughter (about 10) sat in the seats behind us, she kept peeking over the seat to watch us play and my GF said it was fine if she wanted to watch. She spent the rest of the trip talking to us about our games and what games she played and because we got to talk with her and get to know her, we actually did share our systems with her (with permission from her mother first).