So I won't be doing any play-by-play announcements

I always thought I had a decent speaking voice.

I mean, I'm no Ronald Coleman or Alexander Scourby, or on a lesser scale Morgan Freeman. So, in order, I won't be narrating Shakespeare, the Bible, or Driving Miss Daisy II.

But when I speak I think people can understand what I'm saying. I pronounce. I enunciate. I don't slur my words...before 1 a.m. I make speeches to groups and no one complains.

Don't get me wrong. I've heard myself on the radio and it makes me cringe. If I'm having the slightest allergic fit I can be a little nasally. Otherwise, I'm OK, I think.

Imagine my chagrin, when at the grocery last evening I stopped by the deli and asked for 1/3 of a pound of my favorite turkey and the butcher dude sliced me one and a third pounds. I assumed he either didn't hear me clearly or I hadn't spoken clearly.

So I asked him.

"Oh, I really didn't hear the amount you said," he answered. And I started to feel a little better, till he continued. "But I didn't have to. This is voice activated. It listens so we get orders right."

With that he gestured above his head, and damned if there wasn't a little digital reader board, sort of like they have by the drive-thru cash register at fast food restaurants. Sure enough, it read one and a third pounds.

Has anyone else ever heard of that? Voice-activated order thingies at the grocery store deli?

Anyway, apparently the machine did hear me say the larger amount.

I must sign off now and go do my "how now brown cow" exercises.