The Slice: She hopes you’ll take it personally

High school teacher Lori Peters-Merkel says she is on a one-woman crusade to bring back the lost art of writing something personal on Christmas cards.

She likes the photo-cards so popular now. “But a little note on the back would make it that much better,” she said.

This is a time-honored sentiment. KSPS-7 has been airing some ancient Christmas-themed episodes of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.” And in one, Ozzie says the exact same thing.

•Re: the reader who mistakenly signed “Love” on a Christmas card to her accountant: Bill Howard can relate. He had just finished talking to a family member on the phone when another call came in. It was a telemarketer.

Howard explained to the caller that he wasn’t interested. But he must still have been in talking-to-a-relative mode. Because as he was about to hang up, he said, “OK, bye, I love you.”

•Drinking problem: Deborah Chan’s first cat, Musette, loved Christmas trees. She chewed the needles and drank the water.

Then she would throw up.

“Our vet told us chemicals toxic to pets are sprayed on Christmas trees,” said Chan.

So the next year, they got an artificial tree. But Musette communicated that she still wanted to drink Christmas tree water. So Chan filled a bowl and placed it next to the base of the fake tree.

Problem solved.

•Remembering my old building and loan pal: The anonymous wisecrack in Tuesday’s column about a Sterling Savings slogan prompted an e-mail from a bank employee. Her note defending Sterling was entirely civil, and I found myself admiring her loyalty.

So let me tell you my Sterling Savings story.

When my parents were about to move to Spokane from New England in 2000, I gathered up all sorts of information and went to my bank, intending to open an account for them. I didn’t want them to arrive in Spokane and then face some waiting period before they could write checks on a local bank.

Though I was armed with lots of my parents’ personal and financial data – including photocopies of their picture IDs, their soon-to-be Spokane address and a certified check to deposit – it quickly became apparent that it was going to be impossible to accomplish my goal without my folks being there in person.

So I walked across the street and explained the situation to a young guy at a Sterling branch. He basically said, “Let’s make this work.”

And we did.

•Today’s Slice question: Do the rules of modern paranoia not apply to holiday baked goods offered by strangers?