The Slice Mount Spokane Drivers Master Art Of Tailgating

Just for the record. The law doesn’t require that you tailgate when following another vehicle up the Mount Spokane road.

Origin of Sliceman: Karen Buck said the cranky cartoon superhero was created when a mild-mannered reporter had a bizarre reaction to ink spilled on the pressroom floor.

K. F. Trunce speculated that it was a downwinder thing.

Flossie Burrill said an odd encounter with a paper shredder accompanied by a mysterious flash of light held the secret.

Gail Somers said Sliceman gained special powers after ink from a reader’s letter seeped into a paper cut. And Doug Mitchell said Sliceman came to be after some disappearing ink got into a paper cut.

Spencer Olsufka said the column’s author gained a superhero identity after downing 1,200 cans of Slice.

Ron Silver theorized that a computer glitch led to a mild-mannered reporter being bombarded with radiation, resulting in Sliceman.

Others pointed to a totally unexpected result of falling into a pothole, the eruption of Mount St. Helen’s, a character named Niceman going through a troubling metamorphosis, a strange reaction to driving the speed limit on Grand Boulevard and our hero being hit by a newspaper delivery truck.

Thanks to all. But the Swell Paper coffee mug goes to Becky Bongiorni. She wrote that Sliceman’s hard-to-explain powers had their origin in a mysterious, unsigned e-mail that appeared late one night: “If you ask it, they will answer.”

Glass house: People around here understandably chafe when those who live elsewhere get WSU and UW mixed up. But let’s face it. Not everyone in our neck of the woods has a perfect record in these matters.

We recently overheard two guys at a public event discussing the Cougars’ upcoming football game. They described the opponent as “Louisiana State,” “Louisiana Tech” and, well, practically everything but the correct “Southwest Louisiana.”

High expectations: Colfax’s Jeanette Nolan has a daughter named Pam who teaches in the Waitsburg, Wash., school district. And Pam’s 4-year-old son, Austin, believes that someone who is both a mom and a teacher should know everything.

So he was disappointed when he asked a question not long ago and she didn’t have the answer. His matter-of-fact response was “You don’t know as much as you should.”

Today’s Slice question: What percentage of Spokane area homeowners who brag about being near a church or a library never set foot in a church or a library?

, DataTimes MEMO: The Slice appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098. You’ve still got three weeks to mentally prepare for that big Thanksgiving dinner with the extended family.