MACUNGIE, PA— After 78 years of uttering the same farewell to everyone she met, Maude Myers came to learn that “Toodle-oo Jigga-Boo” is an incredibly offensive racist slur.

“I just don’t know why nobody told me sooner? Thank goodness for my granddaughter. It was never my intention to offend anyone,” says Maude. “I’m so embarrassed. I love colored people!”

Maude’s longtime neighbor, James Wilson, an African-American man, shed some light on this story.

“She’s such a sweet old lady. None of us had the heart to tell her. She clearly isn’t a hateful person,” says Wilson. “She’s brought me a shoo-fly pie every Friday for 23 years. And every single time she left my house she’d say the same damn thing, “Toodle-oo Jigga-Boo.” It’s a damn good pie too. What was I going to say? She really wasn’t hurting anyone. But I’m glad someone told her. It was pretty crazy.”

“My grandmother always said it to us as kids,” says Maude. “I always thought it was a cute thing she did. The thought that Jigga-Boo is a racist slur never crossed my mind. She loved black people. After my grandfather passed she fell in love with a black man named Tom. He was like family. She even had us call him Uncle Tom. We loved him.”

Maude had little to say on the subject of what will replace her previous salutation.

“Goodbye I guess. I don’t know. I’ll be dead soon, who cares.”