The Slice: Turn off that holiday music before they have a cow

People can dislike certain holiday songs for different reasons. Sometimes the melody is annoying. Or maybe the lyrics grate on your nerves. And once in awhile, the problem is simply that the tune gets played too often.

But here’s a new twist. Dairy farmer Dick Ziehnert’s least favorite seasonal song earns its thumbs-down status because it bothers his cows.

The song is the barking dogs’ version of “Jingle Bells,” a novelty number that gets played on several radio stations at this time of year.

It might be mildly amusing, but it agitates the cows. Apparently they don’t care for all those canine voices. “When that comes on, they try to get out of the barn before they’ve even been milked,” said Ziehnert, whose farm is north of Spokane.

Normally, the cows enjoy hearing the radio, he said. The music soothes them. But when the barking “Jingle Bells” comes on, the bovine audience just doesn’t dig it.

“By about the third woof, you can tell,” he said.

So, not wanting to sour the milk, Ziehnert hustles to turn it off.

“Speaking of Christmas songs: When Jean Hess’ daughter, Donna, was about 6, she wasn’t really familiar with the word “history.” But she knew her vegetables. So she had her own version of the last line of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”

Young Donna sang, “You’ll go down and get cele-reeeeee.”

For dipping, no doubt.

“Spare change: You’ve heard of the quarter pounder. Well, Ed Schaefer has a variation. He recently found himself referring to his daughter, Catherine, as the quarter pouncer.

“She is attending college in the East and living in her first apartment, where she does laundry in a coin-operated machine,” he wrote. “She came home for the Thanksgiving holiday, and whenever she saw a loose quarter lying somewhere she would literally jump on it and claim it for her cache of laundry money.”

“Lost and found: Back in 1990, when Rebecca Laurence was turning a Browne’s Addition drug store into a cafe, she knocked out a wall behind the original soda fountain and found a young girl’s purse.

“The purse contained some Girl Scout ephemera, a few coins (the most recent dated 1964) and a Spokane Public Library card (with a July 1966 expiration date) issued to Sheena Fay Stone,” wrote Lars Neises, Laurence’s husband.

They wonder if Sheena Fay might still be around.

“Over the years since it was discovered in the wall we’ve discussed how we might try to find the owner and we even entertained running an ad in the personals,” said Neises. “But it wasn’t a pressing issue so we never actually did anything about it until now.”

They’ve still got the purse. So Sheena Fay, if you are out there, contact The Slice.

“Today’s Slice question: What’s the best rule when it comes to co-workers exchanging gifts?