The Slice You Never Can Tell What Triggers Some People

Can’t you just feel those smiley-face holiday vibes?

After we expressed a lack of enthusiasm for the old TV series “Happy Days” - the show that asked viewers to accept Henry Winkler as a tough guy - a reader faxed: “You should stick your hand in your mouth to get your foot out of there - before I take both your hand and your foot and shove them both up your butt! Permanently!”

Worst gift-wrappers: Jeff Brown nominated his wife, Dolly Brown. “Always a generous giver … Dolly uses garbage bags - one large bag per person with all the gifts for that person, unwrapped, inside,” he said.

Heather Carey said her husband, Vince Carey, is the worst. She said his concept of using a department store box involves skipping the unfolding/ assembling steps.

Matthew Lane said good friend Andrew Kellogg tends to use so much duct tape and tin foil that “It takes a box knife and about an hour and a half to get through it.”

Nathan Nall, Doug Sampson, Lorraine Decker and about two dozen other readers nominated themselves. They cited every giftwrapping crime from mangling holiday ribbons to putting the presents in grocery bags.

For the family that has everything: A Slice reader in Odessa received a Christmas letter that ended “We wish you a year blessed with hair loss.”

Here’s your chance to tell other people what to do: You have until noon on Thursday to get us your entry in The Slice’s New Year’s Resolution Contest. Remember, we’re looking for pledges you would like to see others around here adhere to in 1997. There will be prizes.

There already are way too many sad stories: So please don’t give someone a pet for Christmas unless you are 100 percent certain the animal will be happily cared for and loved for the duration of its life.

Slice answer: The Spokane area’s No. 1 cause of people being out of breath? “Crawling up out of a pothole,” wrote Nan Hager.

Warm-up question: If “It’s a Wonderful Life” is actually about two hours and 10 minutes long but NBC has scheduled it for a threehour block, how many times will you have to “mute” commercials and smarmy network promos if you decide to watch the movie tonight?

Today’s Slice question (complete this sentence): You know someone is from Spokane when ….

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

MEMO: The Slice appears Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098. And then again, if you would rather not, that’s fine.