The Slice: Sounds like that baby’s ready to go

It’s amazing what you can hear with a stethoscope. Dana Myers teaches first grade at Spokane’s Audubon Elementary. And just recently, at a summer school session, she encountered a little girl named Ellen who was in her class last year.

Ellen told Myers that her mother is going to have a baby and they already know it’s a boy.

In fact, Ellen got to go along on a visit to the doctor. She was allowed to listen to the sounds her little brother was making.

She told Myers that she heard the baby “walking around” in there.

Now, chances are, that sound might have been a heartbeat. But you never know.

Maybe that kid has places to go and things to do.

“And then after you’re born: Carol Walters reported that her 3-year-old great-granddaughter, Caitlin, recently outlined life for her 2-year-old cousin.

The older girl said that after birth, people get a little bigger, “Like us.”

Then you go to school. Then you get married. Then you have children of your own.

“And that’s just the way it is,” said Caitlin.

Boy, you put it like that and it all sounds sort of grim.

“Slice answers: If the Inland Northwest had its own currency, the basic monetary unit should be known as “the bushel” or “the plew,” said Dale Ackels of Newport, Wash.

You knew that a plew is a beaver pelt, right? Sure you did.

Eric Kile in Moscow, Idaho, suggested “the pauthol.”

Spokane’s Jennifer Adams offered “the splut.”

The splut? “No idea,” said Adams. “Just came to me.”

“When homonyms attack: Ann McCoy saw a sign at a local trailhead warning that bears had been “sited” nearby.

It should have been “sighted.” Unless, of course, that sign had something to do with bears developing real estate or establishing an Internet presence.

Or maybe the sign-maker meant to write “cited,” and it’s really all about bruins being ticketed by law enforcement.

“This date at Expo ‘74: Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

“Progress report: Between 50 and 60 Slice readers volunteered after I said I was looking for people to play catch with. That willingness to toss a ball around and answer a few questions was and is appreciated.

Every person I corresponded with about this struck me as likable and worth knowing.

But, with a couple of exceptions, the early going has been a bit of a fiasco.

Sudden schedule conflicts, sweatfest lunchtime weather and a possible bursitis flare-up have combined to challenge the wisdom of this little project.

But it took me a few years to hit on a winning formula for ice-rink visits. So maybe this will work out, too.

“Today’s Slice question (finish this sentence): “I realized it had been a mistake to go skinny dipping when (_________).”