My friend and I went to the Halloween parade in NYC recently… We arrived two hours early to ensure that we had an unobstructed view (we had a roomy three feet of space a piece).

I told my friend (who had never been to a NYC parade), “as soon as it starts filling up, someone is going to try to push their way to the front, and it’s always a woman.” I told him we could camp out overnight and it wouldn’t matter; women in NYC feel like they never have to wait on line, for anything, and they always pull the “I’m confused, is this the front?”routine (this happens every day leaving Penn Station; women cut to the front of a massive line by pretending they don’t realize the escalator is the exit).

Sure enough, 45 minutes in, a woman pushes her way past my friend, pretending she’s trying to see something in the street (parade was still half an hour away), then, just plants herself in that spot. I told my friend not to budge or she would take his spot. Then her daughter showed up and over the course of the next 2 hours, they constantly stepped on my friend’s foot and leaned against him so that they could assume our space. He asked them several times to stop, but they pretended they didn’t understand him (though they seemed to speak perfect English when they wanted to).

By the end, the daughter’s feet were actually in FRONT of my friend and we were standing sideways. The lesson is, you can never let them in; if you move aside so that someone can pass or so they can ‘see something,’ they will just steal your spot – and it’s never a guy who does this.