Flowers and a Fight

A couple of weeks ago I went with my husband and MIL to the Hampton Court Flower Festival.  Overall we had a lovely day.  There was so much to look at, I don't think its possible to have seen it all!

It was a bit chilly, but luckily the rain held out for the day.  We brought snacks, but still had lunch there.  We had forgotten to bring our ground blanket, but would have spent some time sitting on the water if we hadn't. 

It wasn't just flowers either.  We found some lovely sausages and had fun tasting all the different types of food.  I also got some addictive spicy honey mustard!  And we bought some flowers, of course.  

It was very crowded.  Well, not just crowded, but full of people who thought that they were the only person there.  A lot of people had little pull cart things and had no problems running over your feet or giving us dirty looks when they cut us off.

My hands were full of flowers and my MIL was grabbing another pot when a woman came up and basically body checked her.  There was plenty of space, she couldn't have missed my MIL.  I had lost all patience with be pushed around at this point and very loudly said something like, I guess people don't know how to say excuse me here. 

The woman turned around and started calling me names.  I just don't understand.  She was blatantly rude, I called her out on it, and instead of saying , your right I'm sorry, she called me all sorts of horrible names. 

This prompted my MIL to call her names and it got ugly.  But then we bought our flowers and left.  I thought it was over. 

I wasn't so lucky.  The woman was standing right next to me when she told someone that a rude American had yelled at her.  I was livid.  I spoke up again and said you mean me, after you shoved my MIL?  Of course I called you on it. 

 At this point my husband was next to us and it just continued.  What the heck has gotten into people?  I know that I shouldn't have called her out on it, but maybe next time she won't shove someone to get some flowers. 

Do you think people should be called out when they are rude?  I know that places are crowded and that there will be some pushing, I do ride the tube every day so I'm used to a crowd.  Its the blatant and downright unnecessary rudeness that really upsets me.  I think that its getting worse as well.  What is happening to the world? As for me, I'm going to try and keep my fat mouth shut next time.  Its just not worth the fall out. 

Despite the incident, we did have a lovely day and will definitely be going back next year.