Today's Slice question: How are stay-at-home dads regarded here?

Tip No. 3.

When sending an email to Paul Turner urging him to commit ritual hara kiri at his earliest convenience, do not claim that you never read the column.

Plenty of people do not, in fact, read The Slice. Some of them manage to be productive citizens. But these individuals do not regularly inform Mr. Turner in great detail about why the column annoys them.

Saying that you never read it or happened by some cruel trick of fate to read it “just this once” hurts your credibility as a critic of the media.

One might ask, how did you acquire these trenchant insights about The Slice's manifold shortcomings? Did a vision come softly creeping in the night? Were you the victim of an unwelcome mind meld with a Vulcan who reads The Slice?

No, you're better off just going straight to “Drop dead!” and skipping the petulant farce.

Next: How to deal with family members who drive you crazy because they think The Slice is “OK once in a while.”

Today's Slice question: What is something that's a social taboo elsewhere but not in Spokane?

Last word on flipping off: “The thing is, a lot of the people it happens to, they deserve it,” said Craig Casey.

www.sportspressnw.com

Back in the early or mid 1990s, the subject of the Seattle Pilots came up in The Slice. In response, a reader mailed me a ticket from that short-lived team's first home game.

I cannot remember if it was a ticket stub or the whole ducat. In any case, it was an interesting souvenir — especially for those who read Jim Bouton's “Ball Four.”

I mailed it back to the reader, advising him that it might be worth something one day.

And just this morning I noticed that one was being sold on eBay. The asking price was $245.   

That's just one of the issues addressed in Saturday's Slice column.

All office workers have at least one thing in their desks that would be a source of embarrassment if discovered by others.

New name: A friend's reference to the south of France gave Darla DeCristoforo an idea.

Forget the “North Idaho” vs. “northern Idaho” debate, she thought. Instead, let's start calling the region “the north of Idaho.”

Here's one from Feb. 13, 2001.

A woman came into an Alton's Tire Center with an unusual request.

It seems a pregnant co-worker was craving the smell of new tires. Could they help her?

Alton's employee Harold Garwood went into action. He selected a couple of high performance radials and took them to the pregnant woman's office, not far away on East Sprague.

While she was away from her desk, the tires were placed near her work station. And when she got back, she got to take a nice long whiff of the scent she had been yearning to smell.

The tires remained there by her desk and computer for several weeks. Last week, Garwood replaced them with a fresh pair.

Now Garwood doesn't pretend to be a connoisseur of new-tire smell. He doesn't tout the piquant aroma of a certain 20,000-mile all-seasons number or extoll the heady nose experience offered by an unassuming little sidewall.

“I'm around it so much, I don't notice it,” he said.

But he does know something about public relations.

As for the pregnant woman, well, she's got a few weeks to go. And as long as she wants to be able to sniff new tires, Garwood intends to keep her supplied.

Maybe she should name the baby Traction or Steel Belt.

Check out my theory in Tuesday's Slice column.

www.newsnet5.com

Today's Slice question: How many Spokane residents will violate fireworks restrictions today?

The way some locals act, you'd think it cost $100 a day to park at the airport.

Sayings that should be on buttons or bumper stickers:

“Don't flatter yourself — I was staring at your dog.”

“Ex-Californians aren't the problem — you are.”

“I live in North Idaho and acknowledge the federal government.”

“My other car is a heap so I legally registered it in Washington.”

“Nobody on my Hoopfest team was a jerk.”

“Refusing to let Spokane news media shape my reality.”

“Decode fictions that shape Spokane's image.”

“Get that zucchini away from me.”

(Here are a few snippets from a bonus Slice that ran in the sports section. It was dedicated, top to bottom, to Hoopfest coverage.)

Out of the way or you'll get vaporized: In places, the sidewalks were so crowded it was hard to move. But 3-year-old DiMaggio Brown had a system for clearing a path.  He leaned forward in the stroller pushed by his grandmother, Sonia Brown, and fired at will with a lime green toy ray-gun that emitted an other-wordly woo-woo-woo sound.

Our favorite lost-child announcement included: “She has blue hair…”

Overheard on Sprague (a mom with family members playing on different courts at the same time): “I can't be in two places at once, but nobody in my house has ever understood that concept.”

Most ridiculous gesture: A guy in front of the STA Plaza was talking on a cell phone when he made a “quiet down” hand motion toward a crowd cheering the end of a girls' game.  

The truth about genealogy.

Today's Slice question: What would a man learn if he could be a fly on the wall at a few bridal showers?

Today's Slice question: If you could travel back in time and join Lewis and Clark as they headed west, what one modern tool or device would you take back with you?

Today's Slice question: What's the one thing it actually makes sense for people around here to buy in bulk?

I've heard from a couple of readers who said they were offended by today's Slice column.

Feel free to make it three.

And those who don't want to read about arguably private bodily matters won't want to miss a brief discussion of priapism in Thursday's column.

Warm-up question: What did scooping up toddlers countless times do to your back?

Try to resist: The urge to determine self-worth on the basis of ability to open jars with stuck lids.

Today's Slice question: Do you want a frank critique of your wedding invitation? (Send it in.)

Today's Slice question: What does your pet do when you practice the musical instrument you are trying to learn how to play? 

Today's Slice question: If you knew then what you know now, what would you have changed about your wedding day?

Not so fast there.

One the day Michelle LeBret was scheduled to have a biopsy performed, her daughter called and wished her well with her “autopsy.”

Today's Slice question: Would you recognize marijuana if it was growing in your back yard?

Today's Slice question: If grandparents unionized and engaged in some hard-nosed bargaining, how long would it be before they could dictate the terms of American life?

Admit it: You think that if getting the gas pump to stop at an even dollar amount were an Olympic event, you could win a medal.

Multiple choice: If, almost 200 years ago, explorers Lewis and Clark had worn T-shirts during their journey, what would have been printed on those shirts?

A) “I'm With Stupid.”

B) “Grizzlies.”

C) “Do Me.”

D) “Willie Nelson Tour, 1803.”

E) “Missouri Breaks Fun Run.”

F) “Question Authority.”

G) “Big Sky Conference Champs.”

H) “Bull Shirt.”

I) “If Sacajawea Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy.”

J “I've Fallen And Can't Reach My Beer.”

K) “I Went All The Way To The Pacific Ocean And All I Got Was This Stupid Shirt.”

L) “Guns Don't Kill People — Mountain Lions Do.”

M) Other.

Children's road-trip car games that never really caught on:

1. “Smack Me — I See an SUV.”

2. “Something to Cry About.”

3. “Bobby Ate This.”

4. “Make Montana End.”

5. “Spank the County Seats.”

6. “Countin' Caitlyns.”

7. “Stepmom, Go Away.”

8. “One, Two, Three, Burp.”

9. “Make Dad Lose It.”

10. “Picking the Scablands.”