I had the best private laugh at lunch today as I recanted this story in my head.
Last year, we got new chairs in the office: really nice, black, leather, adjustable chairs with lumbar support. My boss–Dennis–decided to put them together for us so we wouldn’t have to spend any time away from the phone. I hear him saying “OMG” to himself, and finally he asked if I would come see him. He’s a very short (I’d say no taller than 5’4″), middle-aged, caucasian man from Jersey. So, he’s standing really close to me and whispering things like, “OMG…do you see this? I don’t know what to say! I didn’t know! Can they do this?” Very confused, I asked him what he was talking about. He pointed to the box that the chairs came in, and I saw that he was very flustered and concerned about the word “negro.” I immediately burst into laughter which made him feel a little better but confused as to why I was laughing. When I calmed down, I said, “Dennis, that doesn’t say NEE-gro. It says NEH-gro! Negro is Spanish for black!”
