The Slice: Call of the wild often best left unexplained

Paul Turner is taking some time off this summer. In his absence, we dive into the archives at Slice Central. Today, we revisit June 26, 2007.

You might not want to tell your preschoolers the truth about late-night cries of passion coming from the adjacent campsite. So you can do what people around here have been doing for ages.

Blame it on raccoons.

Just wondering: What local adult softball player comes up with the most entertaining infield chatter?

Agree or disagree: The next trend in baby monikers will be “normal” names like George and Susan.

Speaking of baby names: Pattie Felland was exhausted and still feeling drugged after giving birth. Nevertheless, she was handed a form to fill out. And she mistakenly spelled her new son’s name “Micheal.”

In the years to come, the boy grew weary of dealing with the unusual spelling. Until, that is, he was working on a report on Ireland for school. He discovered “Micheal” is an accepted spelling in the Gaelic world. Having some Irish ancestry of his own, he thought that was cool. “After that, we lied and told everyone it was planned,” said Felland.

Marquee matchup: A friend noted that the movies sign at the Spokane Valley Mall made it appear that one of the features was “Nancy Drew Knocked Up.”

Strange fruit: Last fall, Rene Penna noticed something odd. Apples were falling from her pine trees. She soon figured out that this was the result of squirrels getting sloppy about food storage.

A friend suggested she think of the falling fruit as “pineapples.”

Two for Tuesday: 1. I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t love maps.

2. When she was a little kid, Spokane Valley’s Danielle Olsen had a thing for many of the leading men on old TV Westerns. “I was a serial crusher,” she wrote.

Just when you thought you had heard the last about the finale of “The Sopranos”: You know Pizzaland, that place that appears for an instant in the show’s opening credits? Well, to celebrate the last episode, Spokane’s Jeri Hershberger ordered a couple of pies from there. She paid for them to be air-expressed from New Jersey.

The shipping cost $70. But the pizzas were good, she said.