Wedge 101: Pretty simple stuff, actually

You never know what you’ll hear when you ask a kid, “What did you learn in school today?”

Some students at Spokane’s Willard Elementary School recently spent time perfecting the art of writing procedures and instructions.

A pupil named Terry addressed the matter of “How to take care of a homeless cat.”

First Terry listed the needed materials: a homeless cat, cat food, water, a kid, a bed.

Then came the steps to follow.

1. Find a cat. 2. Feed it cat food and water. 3. Let it sleep in a cat bed.

A kid named Kolby wrote instructions for doing a handstand.

Materials needed: a kid, a floor.

Steps: 1. Put your hands on the floor. 2. Flip your legs over. 3. Say something funny like “I am famous.”

And a student named Mark drew up protocols for “How to give your brother a wedge.”

(We called it a wedgie in my day, but times change.)

Mark listed the necessary materials: a big brother, a little brother, underwear.

And then the all-important steps: 1. Sneak up on your brother. 2. Reach into his pants. 3. Pull his underwear over his head. 4. Run quickly into a closet.

Kids, if you decide to try this at home, do me a favor and don’t tell your parents that you read about it in The Slice.

•Dept. of Redundancy: Loon Lake’s Terri Murbach regularly drives by a sign that says “Cemetery.”

Just past it there is a second sign that reads “Dead End.”

•Name that grandparent, Part 2: Because of her mode of transportation when traveling from Spokane to Wyoming for family visits, Ruth Danel became known as “Airplane Grandma.”

Penny Mathison’s young grandsons heard their grandfather call her “Hon” all the time. So they started calling her that, too.

Now young adults, the boys still address Mathison as “Hon.”

There must be a similar explanation for how Frank DeMarco came to be known to his grandkids — and eventually lots of other folks — as “Honey.”

Inspired by a repeated consonant in her family designation, Maida Fast’s great-grandchilden call her “GiGi.”

Jeannine Tumlinson’s great-granddaughter would call both her great-grandmother and grandmother “Grandma.”

That caused confusion. But the preschool girl solved the problem when, inspired by some plastic waterfowl in Tumlinson’s yard, she started referring to her great-grandmother as “Grandma Duck.”

When he was about 3, Patsy Wood’s grandson Terrance heard his mother call her grandmother “Grandma Great.”

Only he thought she had said “Grandma Grape.” So that’s what he called her until she passed away in 2000.

•Today’s Slice question: How did a different hairstyle change things for you?