The Slice: The issue of dropped calls

I wonder how many cellphones rest quietly at the bottom of area lakes.

It’s probably not a huge number. And I suppose most were dropped accidentally. But perhaps a few were yanked from boaters’ hands and hurled.

Feedback on Saturday’s Slice: “I read the Slice on Saturday morning (over breakfast) and saw how you were too polite to include the outhouse responses in your article … but Dr. K wasn’t quite as couth,” wrote Hayley Murdock. “After flipping to page 2 and seeing the article on anal itching, I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of your omitting the funny stories, but the other article coming right along with the medical nature of the human backside.”

Actually, the outhouse stories I kept to myself weren’t so much amusing as they were disturbing. One word: spiders.

More feedback on Saturday’s Slice: “I had a good laugh over your column this morning (about animals leaving comment cards after raiding a garden),” wrote Kerry Potter. “Many years ago, my parents opted to retire in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. After carefully consulting books on how to deal with critters, they planted their garden on a piece of land that was fairly level. I think they’d read that you should plant items like squash and cucumbers and watermelons on the outside garden perimeter, as some animals didn’t care to go through the plants’ foliage.

“They had a beautiful crop of corn, and a family of raccoons who had no problem dealing with their plant barrier.”

On one visit to see her folks, Potter heard her mother complain that they were losing all their corn.

So, after getting back home, Potter found a little card with a raccoon on the front. “Inside I wrote a ‘thank-you’ from the raccoons for all the yummy corn they’d grown and signed it from the raccoons. I left the card snuggled tightly beside an ear of corn next time I visited.”

Her parents soon discovered it and got a big laugh.

“I think eventually they just realized that if they were going to live in the mountains, they had to plant enough to share with all their neighbors, whether two or four-footed.”

Today’s Slice questions: Who are the bravest people in contemporary society? Who are the biggest cowards?