The Slice It’s Such A Beautiful Day, I Think I Have A Fever

It’s Monday, so let’s start with a workplace laugh.

A new national survey conducted by Gallup indicates 76 percent of employed adults say they never call in sick when they are not really ill.

We read this somewhere: The best excuse is an apology.

Shirley Evenoff says give it rest: Saying “cool.”

On second thought: “My first impression of Spokane when I moved here from Charlotte, N.C., five years ago, was that it’s a dusty small town with too many pick-up trucks, country music listeners and adult bookstores,” wrote Jennifer Creamer. “Now I think if Spokane could keep the cowboys but lose the bookstores, it would be perfect!”

Miscellany: Pam Cook was delighted to report that a neighbor finally got rid of jack-o’-lanterns that had begun to look like Salvador Dali’s melting clocks. And we heard about a little boy who refers to the image that pops up on the computer after a session as the “scream saver.”

Slice answers: To hear readers tell it, more than a few people in other parts of the country are confused about the difference between Idaho and Iowa. And transplants from the Midwest called to report that a fair number of Spokane area residents seem to think Wisconsin and Minnesota are near the East Coast.

And Spokane’s Virginia Janni has to explain over and over that her son in Albuquerque, N.M., does, in fact, reside in the United States.

In another matter, a caller named Cindy said “I don’t know about Spokane, but Rockford, Washington has zero tolerance for whiners.”

Warm-up question prompted by a pair of Spokane tombstones that indicated the man and woman buried there had been born long ago in Norway: What’s the most memorable thing you’ve seen on an Inland Northwest gravestone?

Dan Sackett wonders: How many people have actually taken the time to do Spokane’s City Drive?

Today’s Slice question: Does any family in the Spokane area eat dinner at the same time every night with everyone present and the TV off?

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