The Slice: When you find yourself in a punting situation

If you have no interest in football, how have you attempted to make that clear to friends and co-workers on Monday mornings?

Has that tactic proven successful?

Let’s move on.

Watching TV with someone who is mostly looking at his/her phone: Do any of these sound familiar?

“Did you you see that?”

“What?”

Or … “Where have we seen her before?”

“What?”

Or … “Do you think that’s a wig?”

“What?”

Or … “That call is going to be overturned.”

“What?”

Or … “I think we’ve seen this before.”

“What?”

The angle of the sun here at a northern latitude: I don’t really have anything new to say about that. Just wanted to see if you would reflexively hold your hand up to shield your eyes.

But I never tire of pointing out that Spokane is farther north than Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax.

Reader challenge: I’ll start a sentence that describes an idea for a new TV show, and you finish it.

Dozens of long-ago newspaper carriers awake one morning and all discover …

Reader challenge 2: If “newspaper carrier” referred to someone afflicted with the dreaded “newspaper” virus, what would be the symptoms?

There could be a coveted reporter’s notebook in it for you.

This date in Slice history (1992): Has anyone ever gone up to Green Bluff to pick fruit and not wondered what it would be like to live there?

Probably not. But if you want to preserve your daydream, avoid talking to the property owners about the real-world economics of it.

Jerry Weaver has an easy time remembering his wedding anniversary: He was married on 9/9/99.

Today’s Slice question: I heard from a woman named Tamara Bolton, office manager at an industrial sheet metal fabrication business.

One of Tamara’s colleagues, a man named John Osborne, had passed away. And on his desk she found his answers to the recent Slice questionnaire for dogs. She wanted me to see them. “If for nothing else, a laugh, as that is what John liked to do – make people laugh and to write.”

John’s never-sent answers, on behalf of dogs named Pancho and Lefty, were a lot of fun. Though reading them was a bittersweet experience.

Which brings us to today’s question.

What did you find on the desk of someone who died unexpectedly?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Feel free to decide for yourself what is or isn’t patriotic.