Thursday, 5 June 2008

Sympathy or not...?

After waiting what felt like hours for a bus home this evening, but was probably only about 25 mins, there were loads of people waiting so eventually a small old bus turned up instead of the usual ftr. Thankfully there were still some seats when I got on so off I went to sit down. The last couple to get on the bus ended up standing near the front and I noticed that she was very pregnant but nobody nearby seemed to take the initiative to offer their seat to her. The woman standing next to me then made a comment about how terrible it was that nobody gave up their seat for her and I and the lady next to me agreed that it was shocking. Then I realised that there I was, also happily sitting in my seat having thought that the 20 people (yes I did count them) in the seats between me and the pregnant girl should all volunteer before I did.

While I was having a dilemma as to whether I should stand up from near the back of the bus and go and ask her if she wanted my seat, I realised that there actually was a spare seat near where she was standing so she must have decided that she didn't want to sit down. I also remember that before she got on the bus she'd walked past me smoking her cigarette so I decided I didn't have that much sympathy for her. I'm sure the distance of one stop that she had to stand up for before more people got off and she got a seat did her and baby less harm than the number of cigarettes that she must have smoked throughout the pregnancy so far. So I decided I didn't need to feel guilty or sympathetic....fair or not?

1 comment:

Sally said...

Fair. Absolutely.