Husband went to go get his eye exam and get a new set of glasses today. Went to the Wal-Mart vision center, since its one of the few places around that take our crappy insurance and had hours that worked with the work schedules. Anyway, he was getting checked in and getting the preliminary testing done and was chit-chatting with the woman taking his information. She asked what he did for a living, and he mentioned that he's a college professor at a local college, but we're moving from our small Pennsylvania town to Tucson, AZ in 4 weeks so he can start his PhD. Cue the typical response: "Wow, Arizona. There are a lot of minorities out there, right?" Super annoying, but this area is just full of ignorance and we've, unfortuantely, learned to just ignore comments like that as opposed to throwing a total fit about it. Plus, it might be just a poorly phrased but innocent comment, considering that the county is 99.9% white and people sometimes people are just idiots more than they are bigots. Then, the conversation progressed to teaching. Apparently one of this lady's relatives (sister in law? Boyfriend's sister, maybe?) had been a teacher at a school district closer to the city, but she just had a terrible experience and teaching wasn't what she thought it would be because of all the (said in hushed tones) "you know, black people."
Erm, what?
He quietly explained to the manager what happened after the exam was finished (and his pupils were the size of saucers) and told him about what happened, and he was assured that the matter would be taken care of. Hopefully it will be.