Don’t leave ‘em at a floss for words

Let’s start with a seasonal etiquette question.

If you have company over for dinner and serve corn on the cob, should you invite your guests to repair to the bathroom and floss before you serve the dessert?

OK, let’s move on.

•Following up on Thursday’s Slice: When Deirdre Schmid Grieshaber left Spokane for a time and lived in Tennessee and Georgia, she discovered she was a snob about mountains and apples.

•Just wondering: If your dog landed a “speaking” part in a movie, what human actor or actress could provide a voice-over with the appropriate accent and attitude?

For instance, the friend who suggested this question said Drew Barrymore might be just right to do his pooch’s voice.

•Bribes that worked: “One of my daughters remembers that when I really wanted her to take a nap (which she badly needed), I’d say, ‘When you wake up, there will be a new outfit for your Barbie doll,’ ” wrote Jennie Groenig. “Apparently I would spend the quiet, peaceful time sewing.”

•On the likelihood that Jesus wouldn’t have had a Nordic appearance: “I am actually a recovering Catholic, I am not white (by U.S. standards), and I am an ethnic studies professor (at WSU), which means I have been trained to question societal taken-for-granted representations of race,” wrote Carmen Lugo-Lugo. “Even then, I have difficulty imagining Jesus as anything other than the white, blond, blue-eyed, hippy-looking guy I have seen in ‘pictures’ and movies ever since I remember. That just tells you how truly pervasive are those representations.”

•Spokane 101: Did you know the Lilac City is mentioned in a song by the late Warren Zevon? Slice reader Ken Yuhasz did. “Sorry, no marmots,” he wrote.

The rather risqué passage is in a tune called “Mr. Bad Example.”

Everybody sing.

I got a part-time job at my father’s carpet store

Laying tackless stripping, and housewives by the score

I loaded up their furniture, and took it to Spokane

And auctioned off every last naugahyde divan

You might not regard that as poetry, but you have to like that he got the pronunciation right.

•Today’s Slice question: What are some of your family’s made-up names for common illnesses?

(Feel free to include homemade names for pets’ maladies, too. Remember Mrs. Pumphrey in “All Creatures Great and Small” and her habit of referring to her canine coming down with flop-pot or pricky paw and occasionally going “cracker dog”?)