Privatizing public space

Ned's many friends know that one of his main irritants is narcissistic, self-centered people who try to convert public spaces like restaurants, parks, coffee shops and stores into their own personal space. He has written irate posts excoriating dog owners who let their mangy curs run wild in public parks, terrorizing children and geezers, all the while laughing and uttering such banalities as 'he's really friendly!'
Today Ned, after a rather challenging night, was having a cup of decent coffee at his local Market of Choice, together with a bran muffin (the bran muffin was his breakfast, not his companion), reading the NYT and minding his business, and trying to ignore a Millennial sitting at the next table who had a classic case of Oral Diarrhea. But this is not Ned's subject, since that occurrence is so commonplace as to be no longer worthy of mention. No, Ned takes to task today a mother ('mom') and a friend who were in nominal charge of a noisy infant. The friend would pick up the small creature and make it squeal. After about ten minutes of this irritating behavior, she put the thing down and it commenced running around the area, periodically screaming, at which both presumed parent and 'freind' derived much merriment.  Ned and many of those surrounding him were somewhat less amused, but, given the state of self-centeredness abounding today, he was not surprised. Ned thought of asking the woman if she was in the mistaken delusion of being in her own living room, but satisfied himself with wishing her in Hell, and turned his attention back to Paul Krugman.