The Slice: Either way is worth checking out

A friend giving a fun presentation on a South Seas sailing adventure the other day talked a bit about celestial navigation.

So when I went to visit my father that same afternoon, I brought it up. For a few moments, my dad was transported back to his days as an Air Force navigator. It pleased him.

On my way home, I stopped at a grocery store. The three women in front of me in the checkout line spoke only halting English. They were taking forever, buying money orders and what not.

One of them, realizing the delay was getting ridiculous, gave me a scrunched-face look that said, “Sorry about this.”

For some reason, the two of us started laughing.

Sometimes you steer by the stars. And sometimes a stranger’s smile can guide you.

“Her first assumptions didn’t add up: So this third grader from South Pines Elementary School was relieved to learn that a field trip’s destination was the “MAC” museum.

She had thought her class was headed for the dreaded “math museum.”

“Slice answers: A high percentage of responses to the question about readers’ first attempts at water-skiing included the words “enema” or “douche.”

“Ten for Tuesday: 1. Either the widespread scorn for talking on the phone while driving isn’t really all that widespread or a lot of people must believe that it’s just a bad idea for everybody except them.

2. What are the chances that someone attempting to sound tough online actually is tough?

3. Note to business managers: It is important that the receptionist not be a peevish idiot.

4. Slice reader Russell Mau now scoffs at his assumption that reaching local post offices by phone would be a snap.

5. An S-R classified last week noted that a puppy was half “Datsun.”

6. Do 22-year-olds who have huge, extravagant weddings ever stay married?

7. Curt Olsen wonders if anyone who has lived here at least 10 years has not had a windshield cracked by gravel from a truck?

8. Pam Pierson noted that if you come home with raspberry jam instead of the strawberry jam a certain family member has been using on his PB&Js for 11 years, it gets noticed.

9. In the matter of fondly remembered products deemed to be a menace, Betsy Lawrence and Jennifer Simmons shared memories of those clicker-clacker toys.

10. Greg A. Baker can’t stand “Working hard … or hardly working?”

“Never mind towns in Washington: A caller said there’s someone now living in this area from every town in California.

“Today’s Slice question: What will you say if, on Wednesday, a young person asks you, “What was D-Day?”