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The Slice: Taking care of old business

Here are a few more answers to recent Slice questions.

“I have a recurring dream that I am completing my nursing shift and suddenly realize I no longer have a valid license and I’m hoping I can finish up and get out of there before my employer discovers this,” wrote Marilyn Frei. “I always loved being a nurse and I guess my dreams reflect this. I had an RN license for 45 years, but have retired and will celebrate my 50-year Sacred Heart School of Nursing reunion in a couple of weeks.”

Betsy Lawrence shared this. “As a professor and yoga instructor, I have horrible ‘teacher’ dreams all the time, especially before a new quarter.

“Prof dreams go like this: I can’t find the building, room, roster, books, or even what I am teaching. Yoga dreams go like this: I am in weird room that has nothing to do with yoga, with students who won’t take their shoes off, turn their mats the correct way, or listen to a word I say.

“Both dreams haunt me for the whole day. Luckily, neither has happened in real life.”

Jan Jesberger said that up until she was in her late 20s, she had a recurring dream where she was falling through space toward the Earth. “I would wake up just before I crash landed.”

And here’s one more shoved-into-a-locker story.

Pam Pierson was a high school student in Connecticut in the late 1960s. “I had always been teased about my size so I was used to ‘Peanut’ and ‘Shrimp’ – I was barely 5 feet. But one day, on my way to geometry class, some tall guys came by and thought it would be a good idea to see if I fit in a locker.”

She did.

There was no lock, but one of the boys slipped a pencil through the outside handle, to keep it shut.

“I banged and banged on the door and the guy who opened it was Mr. D’Amato, my geometry teacher. He let me out, said nothing, walked me into the classroom and then asked if I needed a pencil and held it out. That made me laugh.”

Today’s Slice question: You know those once popular doorknob-like objects that attach to a car’s steering wheel … what did you grow up hearing them called?

(If you are going to insist that they are illegal, please be prepared to cite a statute.)

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Brett George said he can’t clean out the garage because it would frighten the feral cats that now reside there.

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