A group of parents have been branded ‘entitled’ after they left a passive-aggressive note on a table in a public park to reserve it for their child’s birthday party
A set of parents have been slammed for ‘reserving’ a picnic bench in a public park with a passive-aggressive note. They wanted to save the space for their four-year-old’s birthday party – but didn’t show up for over six hours after placing the note down.
Annoyed, a disgruntled parkgoer said when they finally arrived, the family was “very rowdy” and even brought a loud portable speaker with them. According to the park visitor, the group was so noisy that the park rangers had to intervene. Their note read: “Reserved for a birthday party. Please respect the space we’ve set aside and do not use our tables. This is for a four-year-old’s party, don’t be the one to mess it up, thank you.”
The story sparked outrage online, with over 4,000 comments flooding in, most of which criticised the parents’ behaviour. One person commented: “Several people could have used the chairs and left by the time they even showed up. Do you think this is an entitlement or an extreme lack of awareness? I guess both types of people probably do this.”
Another added: “I understand them wanting to make sure they have seats for a party they want to throw in a public park, but preventing everyone from using them all day when they’re not even there yet wasn’t a great choice,” Many felt the family should have arrived earlier or sent some ‘minders’ to guard the table rather than leave a note. One social media user wrote: “Dads have been sent to sit at park tables to mind them for parties forever – the difference is it is a person not a rude note.”, reports the Mirror.
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“I think if you want to hold the table you need to station someone there to wait all day, otherwise it’s first come first serve.” Yeah, I really want to be on their side because I know even when you reserve tables at the park, sometimes people refuse to move, but without a time on the note, the note is just useless.”Another person replied: “I think if you want to hold the table you need to station someone there to wait all day, otherwise it’s first come first serve.”
While someone else wrote: “Yeah, I really want to be on their side because I know even when you reserve tables at the park, sometimes people refuse to move, but without a time on the note, the note is just useless.” One more person suggested: “We’re having a birthday party for our four-year-old at noon. Feel free to use this table until then, but please leave it by noon so we can celebrate this special day with our family.’ Something like that.”
The Redditor also clarified that the park rangers and city don’t take official reservations, so there wasn’t any way of doing it above board but there are definitely better ways to handle the situation. One person sarcastically wrote: “I am also here with 10 kids doing a party, and we got here when the park opened to make sure we had space for all our guests. Silly me.” And another social media user added: “The fact that the note was written aggressively while also depending on other people’s decency to allow them to bend common courtesy that I found annoying. It’s rude and mannerless. I would not respond in kind of course.”
Some suitably enraged people felt the only course of action would have been to throw the tablecloths and note in the bin and feign all knowledge if they came over and said anything. One cheeky person wrote: “They can’t prove it wasn’t there when you sat down.”
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