The Slice: They’re easier to count if they march one by one

Different people have varying ideas about what constitutes a life well lived.

But the definition for little kids ought to include extended sessions spent lying down outside watching ants up close.

That probably wouldn’t hurt adults either. Until you suddenly realize that you are covered with them.

In the matter of kids being embarrassed by their parents: Les Norton’s daughters are in their 40s now. But back when the two girls were in junior high, there was a four-person grocery shopping trip that lives on in family lore.

Once in the store, Norton’s wife noticed that toilet …

Different people have varying ideas about what constitutes a life well lived.

But the definition for little kids ought to include extended sessions spent lying down outside watching ants up close.

That probably wouldn’t hurt adults either. Until you suddenly realize that you are covered with them.

In the matter of kids being embarrassed by their parents: Les Norton’s daughters are in their 40s now. But back when the two girls were in junior high, there was a four-person grocery shopping trip that lives on in family lore.

Once in the store, Norton’s wife noticed that toilet paper was marked down. “So we wound up getting a case that barely would stay in a shopping cart,” he wrote.

The parents were delighted. A bulk-buy bargain on a staple item – you can’t beat it.

The daughters, on the other hand, were mortified.

“The girls were so panicked that some of their friends would see us with a huge box of toilet paper in our cart they went out and sat in the car.”

I know. I know. Everybody uses TP. And unless you make your own, you have to buy it at a store.

Moreover, there’s really nothing horrific about acknowledging that your family has human biology and tries to address it in a well-accepted, hygienic way.

But, of course, young teenagers aren’t like other people. They have a keen sense of what is and isn’t cool. And parading through a busy Spokane grocery store with your parents as they push a rolling toilet paper barge is not.

Fortunately, many teens outgrow this phase and become adults who would freely admit that toilet paper is one of life’s necessities.

Said Norton, “We have laughed for years about it and even now sometimes getting a new package out reminds of that evening.”

Today’s Slice question: I wasn’t here, so I wouldn’t know. Still, I wonder.

Did Spokane have a heyday of FM radio rock?

You know, marathon album tracks, laid-back (almost to the point of being comatose) deejays, cooler-than-thou playlists, vaguely stoner sensibilities and “Sunday! Sunday!” drag racing commercials.

In many places, this would have been from around the time of Woodstock (1969) into the early ’70s. But we all know that sometimes Spokane operates on its own schedule.

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Jerry Hargitt has to get his wife to decipher every line of the grocery lists she makes for him.