The Slice: Sadly, no progress made on ‘For Whom the Cat Meows’

Before Slice readers are forced to say “Let’s move on,” I have one more observation about how I spent my summer.

(Feel free to be skeptical about that claim.)

You may recall that while I was away, the newspaper printed Slice reruns with a note saying I was taking some time off. That struck some readers as unduly vague. Fair enough. But I’m not sure “… is recovering from brain surgery but we’re not sure how that’s going to go” would have been appropriate.

In any case, I wasn’t around to weigh in on it. So I can’t blame anyone here at the Swell Paper for being cautious about my privacy.

But the newspaper’s understandable reluctance to go into details prompted some inevitable speculation. I have heard from quite a few of you in the past couple of weeks and here were a few of the theories about why I was gone before I told the story in print last weekend.

• Extended vacation: Not surprisingly, many readers thought my wife and I were riding bicycles in Europe or sailing off the coast of Australia.

• Sabbatical: Theories ranged from taking time off to sit in on a couple of summer classes or just kicking back and recharging my batteries.

• Writing a book: That’s actually sort of flattering. But I’m not sure the world needs “For Whom the Cat Meows” or “To Kill a Marmot.”

• Drying out at some place like the Betty Ford Clinic: No one who knows me actually suggested that. But when people are forced to speculate, well, they come up with all sorts of theories.

• I was serving some sort of hush-hush suspension for inappropriate behavior with a summer intern: Again, this is sort of flattering. I mean, I’m 60 years old. Hitting on an intern? “Hey Duhkotah, would you like to see my Slinky collection?”

• The paper was trying to lay me off but couldn’t do it cleanly because I had the goods on somebody high up in the food chain: That’s ridiculous. Which isn’t to say I don’t have the goods on somebody high up in the food chain.

• Family emergency: Close enough.

Today’s Slice question: How long did summer seem to last when you were a little kid?