The Slice The Million Dollar Message
Ruth and Chuck Hensley came home late from playing cards with friends.
Ruth saw that the telephone answering machine had taken a message. So she played it.
The couple heard the angry voice of someone who clearly had dialed the wrong number. “This is Phillip,” the caller snarled. “If you don’t call by 10 o’clock, the whole (curse deleted) deal is off.”
He hung up with a bang.
“Well,” said Chuck, “I guess the deal is off.”
New rule: You don’t get to scrunch your face into a superior sneer and dismiss something as being “So Spokane” unless you’ve lived here at least five years and/or moved here from some place way better than wherever it is you actually came from.
And if you’re not really clear about just where it is you came from, here’s a little tip. Spending a couple of years in some nothing little strip-mall town or a life-sucking suburb 50 miles from (fill in the name of a major city) is not the same thing as being “from” (fill in the name of a major city). Besides, who is impressed by (fill in the name of a major city) anyway?
But don’t get us wrong. This isn’t simple civic defensiveness. It’s about style and facing reality.
Spokane can take a ribbing. We know that better than most. But transplants with an attitude need to remember that, inasmuch as they live here, the joke’s on them.
Nicknames for Spokane’s air:
“Spollution.” - Penny Herold
“Smokane.” - Liz Harley
Name game: Amy R. Marksheffel regularly gets calls from telemarketers asking for “Amy or Mark Sheffel,” among other variations. And as an extra treat, when she corrects them, they often tell her she must be mistaken.
Rhonda-T Savatsky knows to expect confusion about her hyphenated first name. But once, after spelling her last name over the phone by saying “S, as in Sam” et cetera, she received a package addressed to “Rhonda-T Savatskyellow.”
It wouldn’t be summer in the Inland Northwest without: Concerts by oldies groups that weren’t very good to begin with and now don’t even have the original members.
Today’s Slice question: What Spokane area parent has the loudest kids-calling yell?
, DataTimes 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.