The Slice : All signs point to neighborly kindness

It’s time for Spokane to learn some manners.

And I know just who can teach the lessons – people who live on street corners.

You see, those with homes on corners get to witness a special brand of inconsiderate weekend behavior. People put up their homemade, eyesore signs for yard sales, open houses or whatever. Then they somehow forget to retrieve them.

Shocking, I know. Especially when you consider how thoughtful people tend to be in so many other situations. Ahem.

Still, it happens. Over and over.

After a while, collecting fluttering posters or rain-soaked Huggies boxes adorned with orange “Huge Blowout Sale” signs, cleanup duty gets old.

I know. This sounds so bourgeois. Shouldn’t we could be discussing art, exotic sauces or the politics of inclusion?

Hey, this is Spokane. We know how to do bourgeois here.

Besides, those who think we should be discussing more ethereal themes are probably the same people whose dogs dump 20 pounds of steaming organic treats on strangers’ lawns every week.

Anyway, there are right ways and wrong ways to deal with Corner Signs Syndrome.

Here is The Slice’s easy-to-use guide.

Right: Cheerfully call out to someone putting up a sign, “Feel free to come back and get it Sunday night.”

Wrong: Step out onto the front porch with a pump-action shotgun and do your movie badass impression: “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Right: If, come Monday morning, the sign is still there? Simply collect it and deposit it in the yard of the people who posted it. (They’ll be all huffy about that. But who cares?)

Wrong: Take the sign to the poster’s home and use industrial-strength glue to attach it to the front door.

Right: When someone is thoughtful enough to ring your doorbell and ask if it’s OK to post a sign, extend a hand and offer helpful graphic design suggestions about how the sign might be improved. If available, provide materials and markers.

Wrong: Get all weird and pouty and mumble, “Gee, I don’t knowwwww.”

Right: Go ahead and water your lawn as you normally would, disregarding the fact that this will soak an unapproved sign.

Wrong: Set fire to the sign and then extinguish the blaze with your sprinklers.

Right: When, against all odds, you see someone coming back to collect a sign, offer a wave.

Wrong: Same deal, fewer fingers.

“Today’s Slice question (summer rerun from 1992): What’s the quintessential Spokane compliment?