Long tall Sally

I went to Aldi by myself today to do the grocery shopping, and by the time my cart was full, the check-out line was prodigiously long. I sighed as I got in the queue, trying to avoid slumping over and leaning my elbows on the handle of the cart, mindful of my mother's many lessons about good posture and the need to look and act like a lady even when you feel like a troll. There were two senior citizens in line in front of me, one a handsome and dapper gentleman with a ham in a shopping basket and the other a woman with pretty white hair. She was very tall - I silently measured myself against her as we were standing there and determined that I, at 5'3 inches tall, came approximately up to her shoulders.

The genial man turned around and saw her, his eyes widening and his mouth broadening in a big grin. "Well, my goodness!" he said in a jolly voice. "Did you play basketball in high school?"

The lady, who was half-turned toward me, smiled tolerantly and said, "Well, there wasn't a girls' basketball team back in my day, but I would have liked to."

He chuckled happily at that and then his eye fell on me, standing there looking pumpkin-shaped, as usual. "And you, young lady!" [I thanked him for that.] "What did you do in high school?"

"I was on the speech team," I answered wryly, and for some reason, that struck them both as terribly, terribly amusing and they both hooted and cackled and nudged each other saying things like "Speech team!!! Aahhhahahahaa!!" and "Did you ever?" and wiping tears of mirth from their eyes until I felt like rapping their ancient and withered heads together and saying a few things that I'm sure that Mr. Jim Robbins, my speech coach at New Castle Chrysler High School, would not have approved of for public discourse.