The Slice: Not to be confused with spring fever

As we arrive at the last official weekend of winter, a question looms.

How do you define “spring cleaning”?

A) Trucking all of your home’s contents to the dump. B) Opening a couple of windows and doing a little light dusting. C) What’s spring cleaning? D) Frowning at your basement and snarling, “What’s that smell?” E) Getting down on your hands and knees and scrubbing moldy grout with a toothbrush. F) Arriving at the realization – for the third straight year – that you need a better vacuum cleaner. G) Trying to come up with a meaningful decluttering strategy that does not involve arson. H) The first of many yard sales. I) Devoting your life to cleaning windows. J) Other.

This date in Slice history (2012): Before teens had their own phones: High school-age boys used to have to talk to a girl’s parents when phoning her. Here’s what they learned.

1. Fathers assume you are up to no good.

2. It’s always a bad time to be calling.

3. Fathers were your age once, so you aren’t fooling them.

4. Mothers assume you are up to no good.

5. “Why are you calling?” can be a tough one to answer if you forget your prepared material about homework.

6. Fathers don’t think you sound like someone who can be trusted.

7. Mothers can react to your request to speak to their daughter as if you called up and said “Hello, I would like to feel up Kathy, please.”

8. Fathers just hope you are better than that last loser.

9. Little sisters in the background love shrieking “It’s that boy!”

10. Fathers enjoy accusing you of mumbling and not speaking up.

Slice answer: Harold Voltz would like to be a traffic policeman for a day. “Actually one week.”

He would set up speed traps on southbound Division between Country Homes and the Convention Center, from 6 a.m. until 9 a.m. on weekdays.

“It would be a tremendous revenue builder.”

He imagined it might quickly fund the completion of some long-awaited road projects and lessen the tendency to hope that marijuana money will pay for everything.

Warm-up question: What would a 2018 version of the Code of the West say?

Today’s Slice question: Where did you come face-to-face with a skunk?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. An area high school coach returned a preseason form to the S-R Sports Department in which he projected his team to finish one place lower in the standings than the number of teams in his league.