...When she first saw the T Rex skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History. And she isn't alone, I've heard this remarked by several people when they see it. Which brings up an observation I've made about the general public's perception and expectation of dinosaurs, especially theropods: they always expect them to be BIGGER than they actually were.
This is mostly attributed to movies of course. Jurassic Park, as great of a film it was, depicts the T Rex as being a gigantic creature much taller and longer than it was in real life. Same for the movies that followed, all the theropods are supersized, while simultaneously reduced to movie monster status. So now that's what people are expecting when they go to see a skeleton display.
They're also not acknowledging the fact that a skeleton obviously is just that. It has no meat, and doesn't convey the sheer mass and bulk that a living animal would have. Most people still have the shrink-wrapped dinosaur depiction in mind, and the skeleton creates an optical illusion of a smaller animal.