The Slice: C’mon, give us all a brake

Is it chiseled in stone somewhere that Spokane motorists taking road construction detours are required to drive like panicked monster meat in a disaster movie?

Let’s move on.

Oh, it’s you again: “I am still surprised at how consistently I find myself loading my just purchased products into my car in a large parking lot right next to the very person who was next to me in the checkout line,” wrote Erin Rudders.

Just wondering: Ever imagined how the lyrics to Steely Dan’s “Aja” could be interpreted in a Spokane context?

No? Well, here are a few lines from the song to consider.

Up on the hill

People never stare

They just don’t care

And…

Up on the hill

They think I’m okay

Or so they say

Re: Tuesday’s Slice and the exclamation point arms race: A friend noted that, because of the rampant use of multiple exclamation points in certain social media, a failure to do likewise can make it seem as if you don’t really have your heart in “Happy Birthday!” wishes or are being pointedly sarcastic when you use just one in writing “Congratulations!”

Mother’s Day is gone but not forgotten: A reader in Hope, Idaho, told about once receiving a card from a son that said “To My Dear Sweat Mother.”

Warm-up questions: Does anything prompt more effusive praise from a customer than truly excellent body shop work? In the Spokane area, whose on-the-job wearing of a hard hat is almost always pure affectation? Has the way you react to the “Peter and the Wolf” music changed over the years? Have you ever been in a store and heard the clerk with whom you are dealing get on the intercom and utter some code words that you are pretty sure meant “Come check out this hottie I’m waiting on”?

Today’s Slice questions: In homes with two bathrooms, it’s sometimes true that two different people are responsible for keeping each of the bathrooms clean. So how often does it turn out that there is a considerable gap between the cleanliness of Bathroom A and Bathroom B? And does this cause comment?