I’ve rolled this around in my head a few days, and finally decided to share it.

Friday, my wife and I took the children to a local library’s semi-annual book sale, which is run by volunteers. We each found something we wanted and then my wife and I got in line. The children didn’t respond to our “come here” gestures, so my wife went to round them up. My daughter came up beside me just as I approached the checkout table — where an elderly volunteer sat with a calculator and cash box. While the cashier started adding up our books, my wife and son approached from behind me, setting their books on the table next to mine.

As I turned to acknowledge my wife, my peripheral vision caught a middle-aged volunteer approaching from behind. She said, “Excuse me; you have to wait in the line.”

I looked up quickly and replied, “Yes, I already did wait in line”, and turned back to the cashier who was still slowly adding (we had a lot of books). The cashier was asking questions about which tables we got certain books from, and the lady behind me was still talking, so I didn’t hear everything. I heard my wife quietly try to respond, but the lady cut her off.

Then the lady said loudly enough for everyone in line to hear: “All these people have been waiting, you have to get behind them.”

I finally turned fully to her and said more loudly than the first time, “Ma’am, I did wait in line.”

She pointed to my wife. “But she didn’t!”

I was flabbergasted. “But she’s with me!” I said even more loudly. My expression was part confusion and part condescension, as if to say HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THIS? I was frustrated that she hadn’t yet let it go.

Then her face did a double-take, and she stepped back, forming an “O” with her mouth as her eyebrows raised. “Oh!” she finally said. She raised up her hands and fluttered them, shaking her head rapidly and blinking. “Oh, okay, got it”, and she hurried away.

At this point, I still hadn’t figured out what the problem was.

We paid for our books and began to walk away when the lady approached my wife apologetically. “I’m so sorry, ma’am”, she said. “I just saw you walk up with your son, and assumed...” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

My wife said, “It’s fine, you’re fine” as we kept walking.

That was when I finally realized what had happened. The lady had seen a black woman approach the table and set her books down next to a white man; it never clicked for her that the black woman was rejoining me in line after having rounded up our son. By default, she had assumed the black woman was not connected to me.

And it had taken me far too long to see that the lady had been talking to my wife separately; the whole time I had thought she was talking to us as a unit.

I’m sure the lady wasn’t intentionally trying to single us out or make my wife feel bad in any way. But it happened.

The whole thing was so low-grade and casual that at first I was unsure if I should even write it down. But the next day it was still bothering me. And my wife said it was still bothering her too. And the next day. And so on.

My wife had been singled out due to her phenotype — in front of our children. Our kids learned that their mother can’t always act in public spaces the way I can. They noticed that my wife kept her voice low and her demeanor placating (she had known the whole time what was happening), while I was allowed to raise my voice and make large gestures.

There’s no conclusion here. It’s just something that happened.