The Slice: Both brats can cause heartburn

A story in the paper the other day that dealt with bratwurst sausages reminded a Slice reader of a misunderstanding he witnessed.

Several families had gathered for a cookout. And a late arrival spotted what was on the grill. “Who brought the brats?” he asked.

Some time later it was made clear that he was not talking about any of the children in attendance. Feelings were soothed.

But let’s face it. There’s a decent chance some of those kids were brats.

Just because this is a great place to raise kids doesn’t mean every parent does a swell job of it.

•Dog days: “We had been wanting a steer head for our cactus garden and a local friend offered us one he had spotted out on his range,” wrote Trudy Zaborski.

The skull had yet to achieve that immaculate, sun-bleached look. So they put it on a wood pile so it could continue to dry out.

But the family’s dog, a black chow named Chi Chi, discovered it. The dog started burying it in various places in the yard.

“Once with some pine needles nosed over it under her favorite tree,” wrote Zaborski.

They finally had to find a place for the skull that Chi Chi couldn’t reach.

When Pullman’s Mary Ellen Gorham was a newlywed in 1944, one of the couple’s first purchases was a cocker spaniel named Mister.

“Our dog did not always mind us,” wrote Gorham. “And one morning after I let him outside, I yelled at him in a commanding voice, ‘Mister, Mister, come here, Mister!’ “

To her surprise, a garbage collector peered around the corner and said, “Was you calling me, lady?”

•One more animal story: “When my daughter, Nikki, was 3 years old, we had a ferret named Gizmo that would steal her little shoes and hide them around the house,” wrote Tammy Reed. “It became a major chore to find a matching pair each morning.”

•When fruit gets possessive: “There must be something difficult about punctuating the word huckleberries,” wrote Valerie Graber of Grand Coulee. “I laughed when I read in your column about the sign in Spokane Valley in which the word is in quotations.”

She still remembers a sign in Reardan that read “Huckleberrie’s.”

•When time stands still: Ken Yuhasz suggested a category for Slicing: “Temporary signs that go way beyond the normal definition of temporary,” he wrote.

He cited a “Help Wanted” sign that has been on display at a North Side shop for what he guessed to be 10 years.

Maybe people quit every day.

•Warm-up questions: What buzzword is the absolute favorite among managers at your workplace? Ever hear of a fist-fight taking place as a result of Wiffle Ball dispute or miniature golf argument?

•Today’s Slice question: What interruption during an intimate interlude simply couldn’t be ignored and, in fact, brought a halt to the proceedings?