The Slice: She’d give it a thumbs down now

Responding to a Slice question, several readers said hitchhiking was commonplace and not considered risky until the 1970s.

Then there was this.

“Remember the share-a-ride area on Third Avenue by Rosauers?” wrote Sharleen Hill. “That’s where Fairchild Air Force Base personnel used to hitch rides back and forth to the base.

“I picked up a guy waiting there in September of 1965. We dated awhile then married. I don’t know how safe it was because we divorced 11 years later.”

“Misspeaking: A friend’s mom asked her if she had thongs for the salad.

“Pet doors: “We have had so many things brought in our cat door by our mighty huntress of a cat that we had to close the cat door off,” wrote Diane Worthey of Pullman.

She suspects the feline was proudest of the two live snakes she brought in.

“She has also brought us birds, moles, mice and baby bunnies, always alive. One morning we woke up to a robin flying around the house. We think she was letting these creatures go inside of the house so that she could hunt them again at her leisure.”

Maybe she was trying to establish an indoor game preserve.

“Another thing that happened with our cat door is that our former cat, Juneau (who weighed 20 pounds), got stuck trying to get through the cat door. We were able to push him through.”

Sometimes real life is a bit like a cartoon.

Other readers told of close encounters of the indoor kind with raccoons and skunks.

“Just wondering: What goes through your mind when you drive by a place where you used to live?

“Follow-up: “I’m writing in response to ‘Things that interrupted intimate interludes’ (boss calling with an urgent dictation request),” wrote Leigh Brown of Republic. “I’ve been a senior state agency administrator (a ‘boss’) most of my adult life. I’m astounded by the number of stories I’ve heard about employers calling employees to do work during their off time without first checking to see if they’re available and willing or able to work.

“In the case of your reader, I would have replied that I wasn’t in a position to help. If my boss kept pushing me to work, I would have asked if he or she would like me to tell them abut the ‘position’ I was in.”

Dave Howerton of Post Falls also wanted to respond to that item. He noted in particular the mention of rural volunteers being interrupted by a fire/rescue pager. “As a volunteer with a small department in Colorado, this issue was actually addressed with an unwritten policy.”

In a nutshell, that policy directed volunteers to finish what they were doing and then respond.

“Today’s Slice question: Does the roaring success of Bloomsday and Hoopfest put burdensome pressure on every new idea in Spokane to either be the Next Big Thing or face being considered a flop?