The Slice: All invited to horn in on big day

There was a homemade sign in a front yard on busy 37th Avenue Saturday that said “HONK! It’s Joe’s birthday.”

Is this something people do now? If this is a trend, I didn’t know about it.

Oh, well. I hope Joe had a good birthday. I wonder if he heard me honk.

“Spelling bee words that stung: “My maiden name was Savage,” wrote Laura Ellis of Moses Lake. “In the finals of our elementary school spelling bee, I was asked to spell ‘savage.’ “

Everyone laughed. That would be too easy.

Ellis proceeded to say, “Capital S…a-v-a-g-e.”

Because she capitalized the first letter, her answer was declared to be wrong.

Chris Schrader, who one day would earn a college degree in the subject, misspelled “psychology.”

In third grade, good speller Ellen Ostheller heard an inner voice say “poem” might be one of those tricky words that defy logic. So she went with “p-e-o-m.”

Some 43 years later, she still remembers slinking back to her desk as classmates stared at her in disbelief.

Kirk Long blames his mom’s use of Emeraude perfume for the fact he “slaughtered” the spelling of “emerald” in a sixth-grade bee.

Stage fright prompted Donna Clellen to mess up “instantaneous,” a word she knew.

It could be worse. Pullman’s Vicki Dehlbom misspelled “misspell.”

To be continued.

“Two for Tuesday: 1. A reader named Arlene dislikes seeing female TV news reporters wearing ballcaps.

2. A reader named Connie thinks people posing for those “five generations” photos ought to smile.

“Slice answer: Joan Williams, who grew up west of Medical Lake, thinks farm kids still learn early on about responsibility and consequences of actions — such as neglecting to close the gate on a livestock pen.

“Here’s who Slice readers would deploy to Iraq: Drivers of Hummers and/or their kids, PETA members, eighth-grade girls, children of those in Congress, the president and the all White House staff, rude drivers on Indian Trail, everyone who has ever gone to Iraq on a fact-finding mission, Spokane’s TV weather people, the kids who hang out at the STA Plaza, Beetle Bailey, “any American citizen who complains about living here,” deadbeat dads, religious extremists, “gun control do-gooders,” and hawkish talk radio hosts, among others.

“Warm-up questions: Do you have first-date boilerplate? Is your kid a day-care thug? Who is Spokane’s most inept egg-cracker?

“Today’s Slice question: Who has this area’s grimiest vehicle?