This Is A Laughing Matter

Sat., April 17, 1999

By Paul Turner srpaulturner@gmail.com

We’ve been wondering.

Who has Spokane’s best laugh?

* Inland Northwest suggestion box: “Our children need a zoo.” - Lesley Haskell

* Sports Moments That Haunt: “Moment? Ha! Try every game of the 1995 Moses Lake Parks and Rec Coed Church League softball season,” wrote Laura Lea O’Brien, a retired left-fielder. “I got roped into playing for my church. I was so terrible that players on the OTHER teams would say `It’s OK, keep your eye on the ball - you can do it!’ “

* Movie premise: Weary of the urban rat-race, a burned-out Los Angeles couple escape to a quirky little Northwest city — let’s call it “Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.” They discover that real life there is actually an unending series of three-dimensional bloopers and out-takes from movies and TV shows produced in an alternate universe.

* People wouldn’t have to guess about the spelling: Someone around here should name a baby “Washington Water Power.”

Just think ahead. “Hi, I’m Washington Water Power Jones. You can call me Watty.”

Other possible names include “Caller I.D.,” “Lakelyn,” “Zagatha,” “Cougus T.,” “Total News IV,” “Bagfull,” “Buffet,” “Marmotene,” “Fred MacMurray,” and “Expo.”

* Slice answers: After asking if those who went to school far from Spokane ever bumped into classmates here, we heard “Yes” several times.

Readers who attended high school in Southern California, New Jersey, Oregon, North Dakota, Ohio, Minnesota and Illinois told of such surprise encounters.

One example. About five years ago, Russell Van Camp attended a Spokane wedding and found himself face to face with a woman with whom he had been in the school band in New Mexico back in the early ‘60s.

* Today’s baffling list:

1. Humming a song called “The Tears of a Telemarketer.”

2. “You are so grounded, mister.”

3. Dave Alvin on “Austin City Limits.”

4. Sandra Tsing Loh.

5. Girding yourself to body-check a skateboarder playing chicken with you on the sidewalk.

6. Miniature golf tattoos.

7. Spokane’s signature sneeze.

* Today’s Slice question: If, in a bold effort to boost ridership, masked STA agents started going door-to-door in Spokane and threatening to utilize increasingly shocking medieval torture techniques to get everyone to take the bus, what nonrider would be the last holdout?

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