Kindness Amid Shopping Aisles
You learn something when accompanying a slow-moving, aisle-blocking elderly parent to the store.
It’s this: Those impatient glares you expect to see on the faces of other shoppers aren’t there.
Mostly, strangers in this situation tend to be gracious and kind.
* Nose twitching: Maybe you noticed Samantha and Sabrina right next to each other in the “Births” listings Wednesday. So perhaps you’ve already thought of this.
But wouldn’t it be great if a few Spokane area families went with an all-“Bewitched” naming scheme for their kids?
Just think. Endora, Gladys, Abner, Durwood, Clara and Uncle Arthur — all in the same family.
First couple to name a boy Larry Tate will receive a Slice salute.
* Family Phrases Dept.: At George Hale’s home, the leftover pieces of crust are known as “pizza bones.”
* Just wondering: How many local people, when traveling out of state, never miss an opportunity to engage in a little amateur economic development work?
(Of course, some airline seatmates don’t really want to hear about why they ought to relocate their business to the Spokane area.)
* Overheard at Toys R Us (woman talking to a man who was with her): “I’ll meet you over on the toy aisle.” — submitted by Tomas Lynch
* Summer jobs: Carl Gidlund of Hayden Lake said his best was working his way through the University of Montana as a smokejumper (‘58-‘61 and ‘66).
Worst? “Battalion adviser in Vietnam (‘64-‘65),” he wrote. “Actually, it was a year long, not a summer job. But in that heat and humidity, it felt like an endless summer.”
* Breast implants as a spectator sport: The Slice heard from a reader named Patty. “I am a 65-year-old woman who has had implants in place for better than 25 years. You have no idea how much amusement these silly things have afforded me. I find it absolutely fascinating that the male of the species is so involved with mammary fixations. One would think that at my age men would cease this perusal of the female bust. But let me tell you, it ain’t so.”
* Warm-up question: Who in your family most often addresses family members by the wrong names?
* Today’s Slice question: What percentage of people walking in Riverfront Park at lunchtime are trying to lose weight?
This sidebar appeared with the story:
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; e-mail pault@spokesman.com. Going through a box that hadn’t been opened in about 25 years, we noted that, while living in New England, your Slice host apparently considered attending the University of Idaho.