The Slice: It’s time to play Fantasy Spokane

If there are sports fans in your life, you probably know all about fantasy leagues.

That’s where regular people “draft” baseball or football players before the start of the season and create their own make-believe teams. Then, by keeping track of the athletes’ real-life statistics, the owners of these fantasy squads compete with friends to see who did the best job of selecting players. Or something like that.

To be honest, I’ve never been drawn to the whole concept.

But I’ll tell what really could be interesting: Fantasy Spokane.

Here’s how it could work. Competitors would draft a set of prototypical Inland Northwest characters. Then the game would be to see whose people come closest to achieving some version of Spokane nirvana.

You could experience all the ups and downs of local life without incurring any real bumps or bruises.

Now exactly how this would work, I can’t say. Board game? Interactive online narrative?

Maybe I need an economic development grant to help me work out the details. For instance, would it be better to draft real Spokane area residents and then chart their progress?

But I want to stake my claim on this idea. So I’ve come up with a few possible draft choices.

See if any of the following sound like folks you would want on your Fantasy Spokane team.

“A bored 48-year-old lawyer who thinks the answer is to keep buying bigger boats.

“A stunning 35-year-old stay-at-home mom whose prodigious sexual needs are being ignored.

“A fit, popular college student who gets good grades but believes she is overweight.

“A black architect who is tired of being courted by white people who want a Trophy Friend.

“A 92-year-old Browne’s Addition woman afraid to admit that fear of falling rules her life.

“A country clubber who inherited his wealth, business and lake place and yet still regards himself as a self-made success story.

“A divorced 38-year-old STA driver who has a crush on a pretty nurse he picks up every afternoon.

“A manager of an auto parts store who would love to have a midlife crisis but can’t afford it.

“A twentysomething mother who feels harshly judged by her mom, her boss, her kid and, well, just about everyone in Spokane.

“A 14-year-old son in a well-to-do South Hill family whose parents are praying his hip-hop personality is just a phase.

“A 33-year-old manager of a North Side medical office who still thinks about the guy she didn’t marry.

“A 51-year-old North Idaho inventor just about to have his “a-ha!” moment.

“A 43-year-old college administrator who daydreams about strangling her boss.

“A 60-year-old real estate agent raising three grandchildren.

“A career criminal who is worried about his old dog.

“A 29-year-old Spokane Valley bartender just about to write the Great American Novel.

OK, now we just have to figure out what happens to these people.

“Today’s Slice question: Who around here has had the same employee I.D. card the longest?