Sally, Sally, Sally

Sally, Sally, Sally by Mrs. E


"Had she pulled another faux pas?" Sally wondered as she left her mother-in-law's hospital room. Why was she always saying such innocent things that came out so wrong. Surely everyone knew that she didn't mean anything by her ridiculous ramblings. Clive's family had known her long enought to understand. Right? Sure! Like that was ever going to happen. She knew in her heart that Clive understood. He was always so patient. Why couldn't she just sit around smiling, nodding and looking sweet? Never going to happen.

Sally arrived at the elevator just as the doors were shutting. The man saw her coming, and she waved for him to hold the door, but did he oblige her? No. She was dumbfounded that even strangers seemed to be against her. Now even the elevator taunted her as it left her behind standing there gaping and shaking her head.

What kind of a freak was she? Well, if you must know, all of her cronies thought she was an exceptionally nice freak. No one would ever call her ordinary. She wanted to let the world know that if they didn't like the way she was--- well, they could all just go to hell in a handbasket, whatever that meant. She had heard that phrase used countless times in her life and yes, she used it herself, but she didn't quite know how you could go to hell in a handbasket or for that matter exactly what a handbasket was. She needed to research that sometime when she got a chance.

Any way she wanted to tell them off but she never quite had the nerve. Once she wrote a cute limerick expressing how she felt but then, she never shared it with anyone because she didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. It really was a good limerick. It followed all the rules she had learned in school about the 1st, 2nd, and 5th lines rhyming and having 8 syllables while the 3rd and 4th lines rhymed and had only 6, or something like that. Yes, maybe she was a headcase but she knew her way around a poem and was quite proud of herself. So his family wasn't impressed with her degree from a small not quite up to snuff local college, Clive accepted her and all of her ideosyncracies. She was his headcase and he loved her.

When the elevator finally stopped to pick her up, she had regained her composure and was ready to face the world. She climbed on the bus and started the long dreary trip home. Why was February so grey? It's the month of love, red hearts, candy and flowers so why was it so depressing?

Sally knew she had to shake off the blues so she tried closing her eyes and humming to herself. It was no use. Even with her eyes closed, she could see the looks everyone had given her as she fled the room. Scathingly, they turned their noses up. Their looks and body language said it all. What did their darling Clive see in this misfit? She had no sense of propriety. She just let fly any silly thing that came into her head. Did she have no sense of decency?

Well, of course she did. She had just been raised in one of those relaxed families where laughter was the norm. They laughed and made jokes of everything. That was the way they dealt with grief or tragedy or illness or any of life's many set backs. Clive's family didn't get that. Everything was so solemn, so reserved, so downright blah. How had Clive survived this cold no nonsense raising and become such a wonderfully, perceptive man? She didn't have the answer to that and didn't know if she ever would. What she did know was that when she got home, he would come in, place his arms around her, and make everything all right. He was good that way.

Maybe by the time she went back to the hospital tomorrow evening the family would have forgotten her lapse of dignity. Oh well, maybe they would let it slide, and maybe they wouldn't. She had more important things to concern her now. For instance, she really felt the need to get to the computer and find out what it meant to go to hell in a handbasket.