The Slice Hope They Take Advice Before Cats Come Calling

The problem with robins is they just don’t listen.

Every year, we make suggestions about where to build nests. Every year, these birdbrains ignore us.

We’re tempted to quit offering our services as a site-selection consultant. But we fear this one robin is about to start building a nest right next to a well-traveled cat path. And somebody has got to warn it.

You don’t even have to water it: Deer Park’s Tracy Shafer noticed her 3-year-old son, Dartanyan, staring at something behind the refrigerator. He said he saw a plant back there.

“Startled, I looked behind the fridge and decided it was time to clean,” said Shafer. “The plant he was admiring was actually dust collected on a series of cobwebs.”

Under the table: Beth Calkins teaches first and second grade at Franklin Elementary. Recently, to note the 100th day of school, she asked her students to imagine what they might do with $100. “Buy a mansion,” was one answer.

But the most popular idea was to slip Calkins the money in exchange for a promise of no homework.

A good name for a horrible yet misunderstood mutant living in Spokane’s sewers: “The Lilac Ness Monster.” - Rosemary Heilman

“Spokanimal Horribilis Seweralis.” - Del Rohn

“Pothole Phil.” - Cora Schmidt

Reading other people’s hate mail: Diversity, a Boise-based publication offering “Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual News for the ‘90s,” has in its March issue a readable feature called “The Best of Homophobic Mail.”

Here are two samples.

“My wife is not a lesbian and neither is my son. I’ve never had sex with a man and neither has my wife.”

And, “I am curious about how you got our name…I demand that you remove me from your rooster.”

Slice readers’ top junk-mail peeves:

1. Sweepstakes come-ons made to resemble tax documents.

2. Somber warnings about prison sentences for “tampering.”

Flunking Hygiene 101: After watching several lick their fingers while handling money, Suzy Gage wondered if cashiers get sick a lot.

Overheard in a grocery store (preschool girl to a serious-looking man who probably was her father): “Why can’t we buy some junk food?” - submitted by Paul Rechnitzer

Today’s Slice question: How much would you chip in for construction of a tunnel beneath Snoqualmie Pass?

, 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. A reader named Charlie suggested that “obnoxious tourist” is redundant.