Sentiment Offers Possible Name For Valley Mall

Nancy Harris was driving with a niece who had just moved here when the girl asked about a construction site by the freeway.

“That’s the new Valley mall,” answered Harris. “Yahoo!”

“Oh,” said her niece. “Is that what they’re going to name it - the Yahoo Mall?”

Agriculture 101: So this little boy in a blue sweatshirt was standing by a South Hill grocery store’s dairy case. He might have been a second-grader. Anyway, he asked his mother if yogurt came from cows. Then he made a disgusted face when it was explained that yogurt started with milk and, yes, milk came from cows.

A moment later, as his mom was examining a carton of eggs, he asked, his tone dripping with revulsion, “Are those cow eggs?”

The instant the words were out, he realized the absurdity of what he had said. A sheepish smile crept across his face. Suddenly he was likable.

Numbers game: There are now so many of those “Places Rated” lists that we can only guess it won’t be long before everyone in America produces his or her own quirky ranking of the Top 200 cities’ livability. In fact, why wait? Let’s do it. Where would you rank Spokane? On what basis? What city should be No. 1? What city should be No. 200?

It’s almost eerie: We’ve noticed while driving around town that each of the Weather Channel’s on-air people has an exact-double lookalike in Spokane. And they all drive SUVs.

Televangelists could be involved: The problem with referring to something as a person’s “worst nightmare” is that there’s almost always room for things to be worse.

Trail mix: Enough TexMex already. We’re still waiting for someone around here to produce a cookbook highlighting border cuisine. You know, the Washington-Idaho/British Columbia border.

Speaking of cuisine: Several readers suggested that “Lil’ Smokies on toothpicks” would qualify as this area’s quintessential hors d’oeuvre.

Warning: WGN’s disconcerting willingness to cut programs off right in the middle makes watching “The Honeymooners” highly risky.

Warm-up question: What word best describes the experience of helping a 5-year-old get dressed?

Today’s Slice question: What band epitomizes the “Spokane sound”?

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

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