Not exactly a first-class maneuver

Maybe I’m wrong.

But it strikes me that the penny-pinching ways of many Spokane area residents have left some others who aren’t quite so cheap with the wrong impression.

So let me say this just once.

Being willing to park at the airport for a few days doesn’t make you a big spender.

•Holiday competition: I will send a coveted reporter’s notebook to the reader who does the most spirited job of singing the first few lines of Chicago’s song “Saturday in the Park.”

Just call my phone number, wait for the phonemail beep and then belt it out.

Then please tell me your phone number and how to spell your name.

Good luck.

•What if: Forklift rodeo was as popular as the horses and ropes version?

You say you’re not familiar with forklift rodeo? Well, it’s a competition pitting professional forklift drivers against one another to see who can most adeptly handle these machines. According to a news release from the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, there will be just such an event at Spokane Community College on July 12.

Pretty cool, right?

The problem is, nobody writes country songs about forklift rodeo. But maybe, if it catches on, that will change.

Perhaps Garth Brooks could be persuaded to rework his tune, “Rodeo.”

For all the years that he spent chasin’

This dream they call forklift rodeo

Or maybe Willie Nelson would be moved to write “My Heroes Have Always Been Forklift Operators” or “Mamma Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Forklift Drivers.”

No? Well, how about having John Travolta and Debra Winger reprise their roles in a popular set-in-Texas 1980 movie, only this time it would be called “Urban Forklift Operator.”

Let’s move on.

•My source on this is a member of my extended family who was a witness: A finalist for an accounting position was asked that useless “What would you consider to be your weakness?” question. He answered, “Well, my wife would say I’m an alcoholic.”

After a stunned silence, he realized his mistake and said, “I mean workaholic.”

•This date in Slice history (1998): Setting your hair on fire, pinching the skin on the back of your leg in lawn furniture and urinating from boats.

•Today’s Slice question: OK, many of us are fairly cynical about how marketers treat our personal information. Still, how often do you find yourself utterly and completely baffled about how you got on a certain mailing list?