Don’T Blame It On Your Knees

Fri., May 12, 2000

By Paul Turner srpaulturner@gmail.com

It’s time to start working on your HoopFest excuses.

Here’s one: “We stank.”

* Fact of life: Parents don’t always want dating advice from their kids.

* Lightning bugs: “The other day in the cartoon `Rose is Rose,’ they talked of fireflies,” wrote Glen Rupley of Medical Lake. “I bet most people in Spokane didn’t know what they were talking about… My grandson didn’t believe in them until we took him back to Indiana with us for a visit and he saw them.”

* Sometimes slogans say it all: Jan Wingenroth developed a novel strategy while running Bloomsday Sunday. She made her decisions about trying to pass someone partly on the basis of what she saw on the back of that runner’s shirt.

Among those she passed were “Baby On Board,” “There’s plenty of time to REST when we’re DEAD,” and a guy with a drawing of a martini glass on the back of his shirt.

She couldn’t, however, catch the fast woman sporting “No Pain/No Gain/No Spokane.”

* Family Phrases Department: Once when Katie Sander’s daughter, Jessalynn, was 3, the little girl was eating oatmeal while her mother folded laundry in the next room.

Jessalynn sneezed three times. And each time her mother called out “Bless you.”

Then Sander heard the little girl ripping off a paper towel. So she went to see what was up.

“It’s OK, Momma,” said Jessalynn. “I’m just cleaning up my Bless Yous.”

* Visions: A lot of women look great in glasses. But few seem to realize it.

In the cover story of the May issue of Spokane Woman magazine (found in the Journal of Business), former news anchor Marianne Mishima says she wears her glasses almost all the time these days. But in the pictures accompanying the story, those glasses are nowhere to be seen.

* Slice answers: “The Spokanization of your lifestyle will be complete when you have a collision with a group of teenage gang wannabes at 2 a.m. while dodging chuck holes and running a red light as you race for a fast-food restaurant after a bad day doing food service work.” — Gary P.

And after asking about ideal careers for Spokane residents who are ambitious but stupid, The Slice heard from Gary McInturff: “The City Council comes to mind.”

* Warm-up question: Do women attending bridal showers ever talk about the realities of marriage?

* Today’s Slice question: Who is the Spokane area’s loudest sneezer?

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