I despair
As is usual when I am at work, today I went to the local Greggs for lunch. As I was waiting for my tuna roll to be made up, a woman came in with a young boy (presumably her son). She indicated that he could have one of the sweet goods on display. The boy pointed to a strawberry jam doughnut with pink icing. In reply, the woman said, and I wish I was making this up...
"You can't have that one. It's pink. You're a lad. You're not a poof."
In case anyone present thought this was some odd joke, she proceeded to point to all of the available doughnuts, muffings and other assorted sweet baked goods, telling him that he could have any of these, but not the pink doughnut. He could have had a yellow one, if one had been available, but not a pink one, because he was a boy.
I think I was a little stunned. It was the sort of dialogue I might have expected in an episode of Life on Mars, but not in real life. Beyond the sheer stupidity of it, I couldn't help but wonder how she could be certain that this 5 year old boy was straight? Or did she actually think that eating some pink icing could influence the boy's sexuality?
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21reasons) wrote,
