The Slice: ‘Little Engine That Spokane’ would be lowering the bar

I’m warning you.

Start fooling around with replacing the first names of women called Ann or Anne with “Spokane” and you can wind up wasting a lot of time that could have been spent cleaning the garage.

Trust me. It doesn’t just start with Spokane Boleyn and end with Spokane Hathaway. And adding Spokane Landers and Spokane-Margret barely scratches the surface.

You are better off trying to focus your daydreaming on titles of movies and songs and such.

“Spokannie Get Your Gun,” “Polk Salad Spokannie,” “Spokannie’s Song,” “Dreamboat Spokannie,” “Barbara Spokann,” “Spokannie Hall,” “Little Orphan Spokannie,” “Spokane of the Thousand Days,” “Spokanna and the King,” “Spokane of Green Gables,” et cetera.

Or perhaps a better way to limit the insanity would be to stick to geography.

Spokane Arbor, Mich.

Spokannapolis, Md.

Spokane Arundel County, Md.

There’s really no end to the potential categories.

Plants? Queen Spokane’s lace.

Furniture? Queen Spokane style.

Lead character in “That Girl”? Spokane Marie.

Appealing TV sheriff? Spokandy Taylor.

Rolling Stones song? “Spokangie.”

Al Gore climate-change warning? “Spokane Inconvenient Truth.”

Fair food? Cotton spokandy.

Rah-rah attitude? Spokane do!

Alternative medicine? Spocannabis.

Disease? Spokanthrax.

Kind of pop fly in baseball? Spokane of corn.

French dance? Spokane Can.

Customer service query? “Spokane I help you?”

Something dads yell when it gets too noisy in the basement? “Spokane it down there.”

Manufactured audience reaction? Spocanned laughter.

Performers of “Going Up the Country”? Spocanned Heat.

Circa 1962 kids’ phone prank? “Do you have Sir Walter Raleigh in Spokane?”

Challenge? “Catch me if you Spokane.”

Advice on how to live? “You spocan’t take it with you.”

OK. I’ll send a coveted reporter’s notebook to the reader submitting the best variation on this nonsense.

Today’s Slice question: We all know about distracted driving, et cetera. But a colleague noticed a boy mowing a lawn while holding a phone to his ear. That made me wonder.

What perhaps ill-advised multitasking have you engaged in or at least attempted while holding a phone?