The Slice: Talk about trying to pull a fast one

The Slice heard about a Spokane preschooler who was fasting because he didn’t want to grow up.

Nice try, kid.

Drink your milk.

“Semper fi: Are there a lot of former jarheads around here or what?

Retired Marine Bill Wilson wonders. He knows Spokane is an Air Force town. He knows there are Army and Navy people here, too. But he’s always seeing Marine Corps flags outside homes.

“Is it that we Marines have been brainwashed or just that we are overly proud of our Corps?” he wrote.

Maybe people connected to the other branches just aren’t into service flags.

“This could be a great new baby moniker: You know how receipts sometimes include the name of the cashier. Well, the other day at a grocery store, I got one that made me smile.

“Hello, My Name Is Manager 2.”

Of course, to use that as a newborn’s name, you would have to spell it “Mhanajher Tu.”

“Small-town street names: Pat Hess said Cheney’s can compete when it comes to the ability to confuse. “As North 2nd Street dead-ends, you veer off to the right and you are on 6th Street.”

“Fireplace stories: The Slice heard from several readers who had glass screens burst. And Kris Nixon recalled the time a Hitchcockian number of starlings flew down the chimney.

“Re: my desired neighborhood honorific: “Your Monday column reminded me of a young teacher named Hall who looked about 17,” wrote Joan Harris of Pullman.

One day at the junior high where he was teaching, he was thrilled to overhear one student say to another, “There goes old man Hall.”

“So you might take up the teaching profession if you really want to be called ‘old man.’ “

No, thanks.

“Speaking of The Slice’s Monday columnette: When I wrote about kids seeing parents dance in the kitchen, I realized such a scene would seem alien to those who grew up in homes colored by tension and strife.

Same goes for this note from Spokane’s Maureen Michaelis.

“My husband Randy is a hopeless romantic. He is also a great help in the kitchen. Often he will select music to listen to while we prepare dinner. It is not unusual for Randy to grab me in the middle of chopping tomatoes and begin to dance cheek to cheek with me.”

When their daughter brought her future husband over for dinner the first time, Randy declared “all dance” while everyone was in the kitchen. The future son-in-law immediately found a partner. “We knew right then that this young man would certainly fit into our family,” wrote Michaelis.

“Today’s Slice question: What would a psychologist say about your TV-watching habits?