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The Slice: Help me shed one of our coveted notebooks

What eventually happens to the dog hair that gets shed in Inland Northwest lakes by the countless canines frolicking in local waters?

Maybe aquatic creatures use it for crafts projects. Or perhaps it gets turned into afghans for elderly steelheads.

I will send coveted reporter’s notebooks to at least a few readers submitting theories. So let me hear from you.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against dogs having fun in the water.

But let’s face it. It is a lot of dogs. And that has to amount to a heck of a lot of pooch hair released into our lakes.

To be sure, that’s nothing like toxic chemicals, heavy metals or effluent. A few million dog hairs are relatively harmless, I suppose.

Maybe the hair breaks down into its molecular components. Perhaps, though, that takes eons. Maybe there is still woolly mammoth hair down at the bottom of the deeper lakes.

Obviously, I don’t know. I never took organic chemistry. Still, I have a theory.

I suspect that at least a few Spokane area lakes are so infused with dog hair that they are maybe one or two summers away from having the equivalent of a huge area rug floating atop them.

“What on Earth is that? Something is covering the water.”

“Looks like decades of canine hair has coalesced into a thatch on top of the lake.”

Please feel free to suggest your own scenario.

Following up: Remember when I said I was going to hand out dollar bills to bike riders in downtown Spokane who were riding in the street and not violating a local ordinance by riding on downtown sidewalks? Well, I have decided to bag that.

No, I’m not chickening out. It’s just that a depressingly significant number of cheering readers somehow got the idea that I was bashing all bike riders. Apparently these cyclist-hating emailers had failed to note over the years that I am a daily bike rider who never shuts up about it.

So never mind about my rewards program. I’d rather change the subject.

Today’s Slice question: How do you intend to observe the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation next month?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Assuming you are old enough … how did you find out that Elvis had died?

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