The Slice Please Be Aware You’ll Wear That Sweater At Your Own Risk

The people who control the heat in your workplace know what you’re thinking.

They know that you are toying with the idea of wearing a sweater to work - the kind you can’t take off without making your hair look like a rat’s nest. And they’re waiting with their fingers on the trigger, er, thermostat.

Trust us. The moment you show up at work wearing a sweater, the heat inside your building will get cranked up to about 80 degrees.

It’s fall outdoors, but not inside.

Get ready: With Halloween just a month away, it’s not too soon to start thinking about scary costume/performance themes.

And, yes, you guessed it. We’ve got 10 ideas to help get you started.

1. The Thing that wore too much fragrance.

2. Masked channel-surfer.

3. An obscenely defaced campaign sign.

4. Spokane’s worst retail clerk.

5. The guy who won’t stop talking about pine needles.

6. A nonsmoker trying to breathe outside the STA Plaza.

7. Skateboarder with a groin injury.

8. “Creature From the Mariah Carey Video.”

9. A Spokane TV newscaster whose implants won’t stop expanding.

10. The guy who wants his daughter to grow up to be a pro-football cheerleader.

Slice answer: In the matter of questionable expense accounts, we heard about a sales rep who tried to get reimbursed for a trip to Deja Vu.

Career tip: Try to identify the person in your workplace who consistently disdains new ideas that subsequently prove to be major successes. Regard that sorehead’s opinions as a valuable reverse-barometer. Proceed accordingly.

Another movie title for the Spokane Film Festival: A reader named Sherry suggested “Seven Years in My ‘Vette.”

City by a bull’s-eye: Several readers said the presence of Fairchild Air Force Base - presumably a high-priority target for the Soviets - added extra anxiety to worries prompted by the Cuban missile crisis

Warm-up questions: If you had to go through a guarded checkpoint to get into your neighborhood, what would be the password? What local neighborhood has the highest percentage of street signs totally obscured by tree branches?

Today’s Slice question: What five Inland Northwest residents gathered around a table would make for the most interesting poker game?

, 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. Thanks to those who said they would attend a Slice party. We’ll keep you posted.