The Slice The Time Has Come To Select Our Chairman Of The Bored

It’s a common complaint that this area is, well, boring.

That’s not altogether fair, of course. But we’ve been wondering.

If one accepted the premise that Spokane is Snooze City, would that mean the person leading the single most uninteresting life around here would deserve to be regarded as the individual most in touch with what really makes this area tick?

Maybe. But before The Slice crowns a king or queen of boredom, we’ll need to call for nominations.

All right. Our phone line is open. Tell us. What makes your life such an unremitting sleepwalk and how have you managed to truly excel at refining and honing Spokane-style boredom?

If you sold Spokane door-to-door, how would you describe your product: “Spokane - Like brand new! Why, we’ve got brains we’ve hardly even used!” - Debbie Hays

Programming request: It would be a public service if KSPS-TV aired a multi-episode marathon of “The Newsroom,” the biting Canadian-made satire about television news and politics.

How to get that “I live in a pretty livable city” feeling:

1. Spend a few bucks at a small, quirky out-of-the-way business and engage in a service encounter with someone who hasn’t been run through the Personality Remover.

2. Have dinner somewhere different and then walk to see something, anything, at The Met.

Two for the price of one:

1. When getting ready to go to a play or concert, skip the perfume.

2. When you ask someone from Michigan to describe where his or her town is located in the Great Lakes State, it’s not unusual to have that person hold up a hand (which resembles Michigan’s lower peninsula) and point to a spot on the palm. So what would be the Washington or Idaho equivalents?

Corrections and Amplifications: We were wrong to assume that the “Free Pine Needles” sign we noted was intended to be funny. “Every year I put bags of needles out, and people take them for bedding down rose bushes for the winter,” wrote the South Hill’s Christine Weber. “If you don’t have them, they are like gold.”

And in an unrelated matter, a nice guy in the WSU sports information department and several others called us on the carpet in a good-natured way for referring to today’s Cougar opponent, Southwestern Louisiana, as “Southwest Louisiana.”

We have an excuse. But we’ll keep quiet and go down in flames alone.

Today’s Slice question: Could you sum up in one sentence what makes your best friend special?

, 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. We saw a cartoon suggesting veterinarians should offer loaner cats.