The Slice: Talk about a wild birthday bash

Gladys Griffith’s great-grandson, Caden, asked his mother if he could have a piranha at his birthday party.

She asked him why. “So I can hit it,” the 5-year-old explained.

Would that be wise? Or humane?

A piranha might not be all that lovable. But still.

Caden’s mom figured out that he meant “piñata.”

So she got him one. But it wasn’t a piranha. It was a Kung Fu Panda.

•Ridpath memories: Deanna Duncalfe-Goguen’s father managed the hotel in the late ’70s and much of the ’80s. And just as the remodeled top-of-the-hotel restaurant was about to reopen as Ankeny’s, 14-year-old Deanna and a friend got to go up and sample many of the items on the new menu as the chefs cooked up a practice run. “We dined on escargot and scampi, to name a few,” she wrote.

Ken Stout was a part-time driver for a building products company that held a late ’70s Christmas party at the hotel. He arrived early and unwittingly sat at a table intended for company bigwigs. Later, when he realized his mistake and prepared to move, he was told to just go ahead and stay put. As a result, his co-workers at the party found themselves wondering just how the part-time driver rated.

Carol Auvil remembers celebrating her first wedding anniversary there, many years ago. “We were young, skinny and blissful,” she wrote.

•Skating banners tweaked: Remember that Slice reader last weekend who had grammar issues with the proposed graphics for the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships to be held here in Spokane?

Well, event organizer Barb Beddor graciously acknowledged that the critique had merit. So MENS will be changed to MEN’S.

But she said that U.S. Figure Skating, the national governing body of the sport, has decreed that LADIES stays as is.

•Update: Remember that column item last month about the request for used wedding dresses to be given to brides in Malawi? Well, several people donated. And I’m told the first five dresses have recently been delivered to that African nation.

•Thanks to all who mentioned “Crashcade” Airways: I stopped compiling the list of airlines that once served Spokane because I grew weary of having to spell out which were defunct, which had been acquired, which had merged with other airlines and which had suspended operations and then taken off again with new names.

•Today’s Slice question: If you were going to rename “Pig Out in the Park,” what would you call it?