The Slice Going Strong At 1,000

Our math might be off by a hair.

After all, liberal arts majors and arithmetic don’t always mix.

But we think this might be the thousandth edition of The Slice.

And we want to take this occasion to thank the column’s readers. Some of you are nutcakes. That doesn’t change the fact that it has been a privilege to have had this five-year conversation with Inland Northwesterners.

The further adventures of Spokane’s Shumaker brothers: Five-year-old Jackson awoke from a bad dream, crying that a monster was trying to attack him.

Quinn, 3, was concerned. “Was it a scary monster, Jackson?”

Jackson looked at his little brother in disbelief. “Well, you should know, Quinny,” he said. “You were there.”

Ludicrous answers to reasonable questions: Helen Fitzsimmons told us about the time a blind friend walking with a seeing-eye dog asked someone for directions. The woman who had been asked for help was happy to oblige.

So she leaned over and gave explicit directions to the dog.

They consider her a blood bank: Clare Keith of Hope, Idaho, knows why mosquitoes go for her. “I have the rare blood type AB,” she wrote. “Any time they need a transfusion, they bite me.”

Apparently mosquitoes need a lot of transfusions, she said.

The wages of honesty: Dorothy Burcey’s 8-year-old granddaughter was in a North Side grocery store when she noticed that a man had dropped a $10 bill. She picked up the sawbuck and returned it to him.

He gave her $5.

Home economics: “The easiest way to increase the value of your house by $25,000 is to add a $50,000 kitchen.” - David Owen, Home magazine

Adults are weird: Little kids never fail to be amazed when they learn that their parents are considered to be good-looking.

Slice answer: “People without basements don’t have to keep four pumps going 24 hours a day for 36 days to keep the Pend Oreille River out,” wrote Lulu Stuver of Metaline.

Warm-up question: How long could your family go without TV?

Today’s Slice question: When traveling in more temperate corners of the Northwest, how often do you encounter people who say that relatively hot summer weather is one of Spokane’s big drawbacks?

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

MEMO: The Slice appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098. There are about six Slice items from over the years that we really regret.