Today, I went grocery shopping with my grandmother. Our bagger offered to help load our groceries, to which my grandmother replied, "Oh, what a nice young colored boy." FML
Collection
Fall
Dead leaves, the first cold of the season and an umbrella flipped inside out: fall, the season of grace.
Today, I took my grandmother shopping and insisted on carrying everything myself. Halfway across the parking lot, one bag ripped open and 6 oranges rolled in different directions. Watching 3 strangers chase fruit while my grandmother laughed harder than I've ever seen was somehow both wholesome and humiliating. FML
Today, I was helping my elderly neighbor carry her groceries into her kitchen. When I finished, she sighed and said, "You're such a sweet girl. It's just a shame about your face." FML
Today, at the supermarket, an old lady asked for directions to the produce aisle. Having read way too many stories lately on this very site about awful elderly folks, I was wary, but helped her out. She gave me an awkward hug in thanks, lifting my wallet in the process, as I later found out. FML
Today, I was working at the grocery store and a very old woman wanted to give me a tip for bagging her groceries. She slid a quarter into my pocket against my thigh as deep down as she could get it, then she gave me a smile and a wink. I was groped by a grandma. FML
Today, I had to drag my grandmother out of a store because she went up to a black family and started apologizing for slavery. FML
Today, at work at a grocery store an old couple came through my checkout lane. As I was putting their bagged groceries in the cart, the old man started feeling me up. FML
Today, an elderly woman couldn't afford all of her groceries at the checkout so she started to take out a few things. I offered to pay for her groceries; she thanked me and walked out. An onlooker then came up to me and told me that she does it to someone every week. FML
Today, I was grocery shopping, feeling good about myself, until when I was waiting in line at the checkout, a small kid in his mother's arms in front turned to look straight at me and said, "Ewwwww." FML
Today, I asked an elderly customer at my work if she needed help with her groceries. She responded, "I normally would, but I'm afraid you'll eat all the groceries." FML
Today, I tried helping an old lady with her groceries. When I asked if she needed help she smiled. When I took one of her bags she yelled. I didn't know she was deaf. FML
Feel like sharing it with the other FML users?
Thanks, your FML was submitted, and will appear in the moderation queue soon!
Top comments
Death69 24
Well...At least she didn't use the "N" word.
almost_there44 26
"Nice little colored boy," is not a compliment. If it were a white boy, she wouldn't have used his skin color to describe him. Secondly, she seemed surprised that the boy was doing something nice, because "colored" people are sometimes assumed to always do the opposite.
Add a comment · Reply to
You must be logged in to be able to post comments!
Comments (18)
Death69 24
Well...At least she didn't use the "N" word.
Glowworm56 27
Well she did use an "n" word to describe him. Fortunately it wasn't the "N" word.
jdizz16 16
She's probably super old... can't expect much more from her.
MinahMocha 10
Comment moderated for rule-breaking.
I don't see anything bad about this because you can tell she was not trying to insult him. From her perspective it is a compliment.
almost_there44 26
"Nice little colored boy," is not a compliment. If it were a white boy, she wouldn't have used his skin color to describe him. Secondly, she seemed surprised that the boy was doing something nice, because "colored" people are sometimes assumed to always do the opposite.
pjsr 33
Plot twist... he was hispanic or asian. I'm dying to know what the nice colored boy's reaction was.
RaylanGivens 14
Comment moderated for rule-breaking.
Once you hit 70, as long as you're not *actively* racist (supporting the local chapter of the Klan, going out of your way to be an asshat to other people, etc-- and it sounds like your grandmother isn't like that), I feel like you get a pass. Old dog, new tricks and all that.
RaylanGivens 14
Who are the seven people that don't like the fact that what's kosher to say changes? Two examples: Stephen King writes about an interracial couple that were born several decades apart (time travel was involved). She's black, he's white, she gets annoyed when she gets called black because growing up, that was a slur (colored, like the grandma says, was the accepted term). He says if he called a kid "colored" growing up, he'd have gotten beat up. Second: read what Lincoln (you know, dude who ended up FREEING THE SLAVES) had to say about black people. He was so radical, he broke the country, but he'd be considered super racist today. Learn your history; the things you say and think today will probably be very offensive to the people of 80 years from now.
Druu 53
Just because something was acceptable once does not mean it's still acceptable now. Next time you get a toothache, pack some willow bark into your mouth instead of going to a dentist. I'm the ninth thumbs down.
RaylanGivens 14
As a person of color (half white, half black, if you're curious), I'm inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt. Is it frowned upon now? Sure. Was it when she was growing up? Probably not. I went to school with two kids that would give me crap for being (partially) black. One was kidding. The other had family in the Klan. You can tell the difference between someone who means it negatively and someone who doesn't. She didn't (probably). By the way-- the willow bark thing? Not a one to one comparison. I grew up with a dentist. I also grew up calling people "black." I've yet to make the switch to African-American (which I think is the term now) unless they're actually *from* Africa (I know a few people like that; I also refuse to call some of my friends 'Italian American,' so it's fair). Point being, if I don't do it (and many of my family members on both sides my age don't either), how can I reasonably expect someone much older than me to do so? Lotta glass in the house, so I don't throw stones-- I would hope that when I'm that age and say something like "homosexual" that my grandkids show me more mercy than you guys do.
Sparx1_1 16
it's all in the context. Considering some of the idiotic things people used to say and believe about different races, using the word "colored" isn't a big deal.
Glowworm56 27
At least grandma thought he was nice!
reymon8823 24
depends on the time frame your grandma grew up in
Alexandria79 22
if your grandma grew up in the 30s to 50s then this probably isn't unusual.
jocamo 24
I understand how you feel OP. I was with my grandmother at a fundraiser dinner for my church where they introduced the (new/Caucasian) pastor (my sister and I took her there, this was not her church). She looked around confused and said "I thought your pastor was that nice dark fellow" (this wasn't her first event at the church so she'd met the lead pastor who is black [He doesn't identify as African-American as we're Canadian]
band_geek 18
There's part of me that's going, "That sucks," but at the same time, you have to understand that her culture and ours is different. For old folks like our grandparents, they always used term "colored" for blacks whereas we would never use that term since it would be as offensive as "N" word. So with the cultural differences taken into considerations, it's not bad at all. In fact, for someone like her, it's really a compliment. One of my professors who's also black was told by an elderly white man that she's the "prettiest colored girl" he'd ever seen. Even she started to take offense to it at first until reminding herself that his generation is completely different from ours.