Random Act Of Phone Kindness
Val Hall told us a story.
She had car trouble and was stranded. So she found a pay phone and tried calling her roommate. But she misdialed and got a stranger, Stacy Williams.
They spoke. After hanging up, Williams phoned Hall’s roommate and explained the situation.
Then Williams called Hall back at the pay phone to report that the roommate was on her way.
We contacted Williams. She doesn’t believe making a couple of calls qualifies her for a medal. She just looks at it this way. “I like to think that if I do some small favor for somebody, maybe someone will do something for me when I need help.”
Eating speed: “The fastest eater known has to be Ron Wieber — part owner, manager and bartender at the Park Inn tavern,” wrote Terry Barnes. “The slowest eater has to be Pat Powers, part owner and local legend at the same tavern.”
Barnes said Wieber eats “Like a death camp sled dog.”
On the other hand, Powers is reported to dine at a glacial pace. “Recently, after he said he was ‘starved,’ it took Pat 38 minutes to eat a chili dog,” wrote Barnes.
Downside to El Nino: For those who enjoy seeing shorts-wearing teenagers freezing their attitudes off in single-digit temperatures, this winter has been a bust.
Stories keep coming through our pet door: “I got out of bed one evening to find my barking dog in the kitchen face to face with a full-grown raccoon,” wrote Janet Ocheltree, who lives on Spokane’s South Hill.
After a few screams, Ocheltree and her roommate used snow shovels to block the nocturnal animal from further explorations of the residence.
“He finally climbed down from the top of the curtains on the slider door and scurried back out the dog door,” she wrote. “But not before I got a picture.”
That photo, which Ocheltree shared, supports her home-invasion story. In it, the raccoon is hanging from the top of the curtains and appears to be wishing that everyone would just go back to bed.
Just wondering: What do grade-school kids collect these days?
Microorganism Fest ‘98: We noticed a woman entering the STA Plaza who treated the door handles as if they were teeming with plague germs. We’re not saying she was wrong to behave that way. But it did make us wonder. And that musing brings us to …
Today’s Slice question: What public surface in the Inland Northwest would you definitely not want to touch if you knew you couldn’t wash your hands right away? , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
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