The best of The Slice: The answer’s right at your fingertips

Editor’s note: Paul Turner is taking some time off. In his absence, we’re diving into the archives here at Slice Central. Today, we revisit March 30, 2006.

The relatively low humidity here contributes to all sorts of undesirable skin and hair conditions.

We’re all familiar with the list.

But you know which one drives me crazy?

A lot of times, my fingertips are so dry I can’t seem to pick up a piece of paper or turn a page.

Is it just me?

Slice answers: “When I was in the fourth grade, I lived in a small mining town in Montana,” wrote Lynda Post of Moscow, Idaho. “While visiting a cattle ranch nearby, I remarked to my mother, ‘Oh, look at that cow scratching the other cow’s back.’

“Shortly after that, mother sat me down and she and I read about the facts of life.”

Dave and Sandy Holtzheimer of Colfax report that they once cashed in $957.14 worth of coins at one of those change-counting machines in a grocery store.

So much for my thinking that my own $150 cash-in might have been some sort of record.

Readers were sharply divided in the matter of whether people entering their homes should be required to remove their shoes immediately after coming through the door. Here are a few representative responses.

Carol Siegenthaler is no fan of such policies. “I feel it’s rude and uninviting to go to someone’s house and be asked to remove my shoes,” she wrote. “I have white carpet throughout my home. I want everyone to feel welcomed, and they do. Carpets can be cleaned. But I have never had a problem.”

Sheree Adams is in favor of a shoes-off rule. “Think about all the places your soles have been this week,” she wrote. “Do you really want this residue throughout the carpeting of your home?”

Barry Nathaniel agreed. “The policy in our home is to always take off your shoes as soon as you enter the house,” he wrote. “My wife is Japanese, and it is their custom to never wear shoes in the house. In addition, my family is originally from Hawaii where most people take their shoes off when they enter the house.

“My wife enforces this rule pretty strictly and even the maintenance guys who have to come into the apartment are subject to it.”

At Phil Bergin’s house, residents always remove their shoes. But guests are not required to do so. “If they volunteer to remove their shoes, we provide slippers.”

And if Julie Farmer were to put one of her dad’s sayings on a T-shirt, it might be “Do you think I own Washington Water Power?”

Recycling: Spokane’s Harry and Bernice Burger have been sending the same anniversary card back and forth with another couple since 1983. (They include a new personal note each year.) “Not bad for a 75 cent card,” wrote the Burgers.

Today’s Slice question: Where does the Palouse begin and end?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098; email pault@spokesman.com.