TIFU by calling someone the r-word

Repost because I failed to edit the banned word, sorry y’all. 😓

So this happened a long time ago, probably around 2003/4 when I was 5 or 6 years old. About once a month, I remember this happening and it has scarred me so deeply I can remember it in detail.

I grew up running around in my family business, which was a small town grocery store. Some days, when my mom was at work, I would hang out at the store with my family and talk with the customers and cashiers near the cash registers or hang out in the office and watch cartoons.

Well, this happened on the day I learned the word “retired” and that it’s usually for old people. Now, this was a new word for me obviously and I had also just recently heard the word “r-word+ed” (this will be relevant soon).

I was so excited to share my new word “retired” that I ran up from the back office to the front registers to tell my favorite cashier. Let’s call her Michelle. Well, at the time an older man was waiting to check out and I thought he’d be the perfect candidate for my new word. So confidently, I waltz right over to him and asked him “Hi! Are you r-word+ed?”. Like most people, he starred at me in disbelief and Michelle just gawked and turned bright red. She then said, “that’s not a very nice thing to say (my name)! Say sorry right now!”. To which was very confused and said back, “but he’s old and doesn’t have a job!” I think at that point they both were horrified and everyone else around them was embarrassed. Michelle then yelled at me to go back to the office and she apologized to the older man and checked him out.

Afterwards, she then called my dad on the internal store phone and explained the situation. I was sat down and he told me what I did was wrong and very rude. I explained I just asked him if he stopped working because he’s old and I think that’s when my dad realized I meant to ask if he was “retired”.

After that point, I’m not sure of the details but I’ve been told the customer had come back the next week and my dad explained to him that it was a new word for me and I had meant to ask if he was “retired”. He had to say “sorry” on my behalf and it became a little joke between them.

Now this is an anecdote my family likes to bring up around new guests when I’m around, especially when Michelle is there (she a cousin to my cousin), and I guess it’s funny now but I haven’t managed to loose the heavy weight of cringe.

TL;DR: As a very small child, I asked an older man if he was “r-word” instead of “retired” because they were new words and I cringe once a month because of it.