So, we decided to drive to the next very small town, and go to their restaurant, which is thankfully open. We had never been there before, and were pleasantly surprised by the food and the friendly people. We were about half-way through our breakfasts, sharing stories of the night before and drunken revels past, when the waiter, a nice, chatty kind of small town guy, shares his own story with us. He describes how he was in the nearby city, having a wild night, when he used the dreaded phrase, "I'm not racist, but," which was immediately followed by his description, complete with racial slur, about a black man who'd asked him for change outside of a liquor store. We sat there, in varying stages of disbelief, as he told us, "I took a handful of change and threw it on the ground. Every time I go to [the city], some [racial slur] asks me for change! You know half 'em [racial slur] got more money in their wallets that I got in my pockets."
Ho. Ly. Crap. I can only assume that he thought because we were all white, we would just share a hearty laugh at THEM with him. He was incredibly wrong, though I doubt our complaints will do much good.