The Slice Some People Can’t Stomach The Phrase ‘Turkey Day’

Every year, a reader who hates the expression calls to request that we discourage people from using the phrase “Turkey Day.”

Well, consider it done.

While we’re at it, we don’t want to see any more cigarette butts on streets and sidewalks. And no more foul language around little kids.

You can say that again: “While sitting in the car in a Spokane parking lot, our 3-year-old granddaughter was telling us a long and detailed story about an annoying little girl in her pre-school class,” wrote Chewelah’s Carol Auvil. “As she finished and we were all just sitting quietly contemplating the whole thing, I was surprised to see a man walking toward us with a bright orange and black T-shirt with the words ‘EPHRATA TIGERS’ on the front. I said, ‘Oh, Ephrata Tigers.’ And she said, very quietly and seriously, ‘Yes, she is!’ “

Slice answer: “Yes, we are aware of our bad breath,” faxed Steve Hurtig of Libby, Mont. “It’s how we get even with people who have bad manners.”

Uh, the word is “homilist”: In describing a Thanksgiving Eve service, a local church bulletin recently reported that the Rev. Brian Prior would be the “homeliest.”

The fair-minded reader who shared this noted, “Father Prior really is not bad looking.”

Another Slice answer: In the matter of who is smarter, the driver of the pickup or the dog in the back, Orient’s Gladys Tolliver sided with the guy behind the wheel. “You don’t see the dog getting out to open the gate,” she wrote.

Well, OK. But perhaps that has more to do with not having a thumb than with intelligence. Besides, a lot of dogs probably aren’t all that excited about going to some of the pickup drivers’ favorite haunts.

TV tonight: PBS. Enough said.

Mixed nuts: After we asked if it’s true that small towns and cities have about the same percentage of nuts, a reader who lives in a small Inland Northwest community phoned us. The percentages probably are about the same, he said. “But in a small town, the nuts are unavoidable.”

There might be something to that. But even if many of them are anonymous in their aggressive eccentricity, we would stack Spokane’s nuts up against anybody’s.

Today’s Slice question: What Spokane area boss is most like Larry Tate from “Bewitched”?

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

MEMO: The Slice appears Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098. Something about Cindy Crawford holiday commercials says it all about the ‘90s.