The meaning of the category and concept of mild mental retardation is explored through the words of fictional characters and the accounts of real people who have been injured and stigmatized by the label. Examples of the extremes to which people have gone to avoid or escape the term mental retardation are provided. The classification of mild retardation is presented as a fabrication with no coherence in the characteristics and needs of the people placed under its conceptual umbrella. A call for new terminology and, more important, new thinking about this misunderstood and nearly forgotten population of children and adults is issued.