The Slice: Jury’s still out on reunions

Here are eight similarities between high school reunions and jury duty.

1. Some of the people don’t really want to be there.

2. Assumption of guilt is a recurring theme.

3. Can be more interesting than expected.

4. Certain people talk too much.

5. Speculation about plastic surgery.

6. You can tell when someone is not listening.

7. Some overdo the perfume/cologne.

8. Powerful urge to talk or write about it afterward.

Keeping up with current events: Wendy Pemberton was in a Spokane hospital waiting room the other day. She was there in anticipation of the arrival of a new grandchild.

“I looked at the magazines and picked up a copy of National Geographic,” she wrote.

As usual with that publication, she enjoyed paging through it. But she noticed an ad for a station wagon that just did not look right.

“I checked the date of the magazine and it was February 1974.”

This didn’t trouble her, as her mind was on other things anyway. Still, it raises a question.

If everything in Spokane were divided into two categories — “BE” and “AE” — would you, like that National Geographic, qualify as “Before Expo” or would you be “After Expo”?

Slice answer (rating the commercials airing during the Olympics): “With three or more channels carrying the Olympics and with the use of recorders, why would anyone want to watch the commercials?” wrote Gary Rust.

Name game: Judie Mitchell gets called “Jody,” sees her name spelled “Judy” or “Julie” and has people insist that “Judith” has to be her real name, even though it is not.

Sometimes, though, confusion of this nature can be the result of honest misunderstandings. Consider what happened to Bev Stevens.

“After four years of calling my daughter-in-law’s grandmother ‘Jean,’ I recently realized that it’s ‘Joan,’ not ‘Jean.’ Don’t know why someone didn’t correct me four years ago.”

Today’s Slice question: Is there a price to pay for having a personal policy of not socializing with people from work?