The Slice: Mom makes exceptions for certain weirdos

Someone asked me the other day if The Slice had stopped doing “kid stuff” items.

Uh, no. In fact, here’s one.

Judy McKeehan’s 6-year-old granddaughter asked her mother why they always lock the door to their home.

“To keep the weirdos out,” said the mother.

The little girl didn’t quite understand the strategy. Or perhaps vocabulary comprehension was the issue.

In any event, the puzzled child reminded her mom, “Daddy has a key.”

Read all about it: The first item in Thursday’s Slice was about a guy who waits for the go-ahead from his spouse before commencing spring planting. The headline said “Consult farmer’s wife’s almanac.”

But at first glance Robin Cole read that as “Consult former wife’s almanac” and thought, hmmm, that could be interesting.

Don’t send in the clowns: “I see that the circus is in town so it’s time to expound on my theory of why baby boomers don’t like clowns,” wrote Liz Cox.

“As kids, we all watched ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’ We’d sit in front of the TV on Sunday nights, knowing that tomorrow it was back to school and this was our last moment of fun for that weekend. Just when Ed got our hopes up by saying ‘…and now a treat for you youngsters,’ making us think we’d see a cute Mersey Beat band, he introduced a bunch of Communist clowns from the Moscow Circus. They were weird-looking even by clown standards.”

To Cox, it was a cruel bait-and-switch.

“Nothing can match the adolescent crash of yearning for Herman’s Hermits and getting Communist clowns instead.”

Slice answer: Thomas Sherry had an answer for the question about who around here inspires the most jealousy.

“People who spend a week or two in Lahaina in January,” he said.

Mark Slater’s idea for improving driving safety: “Passenger assisted turn signals.”

Warm-up question: If you could attend major league sports events by driving no more than 25 miles, how often would you go to NFL, NHL, NBA or MLB games?

Today’s Slice question: What would you say to someone who mocks concerns about the environment?