The Slice: No time to relish the moment

This might be some sort of record.

After buying a hot dog from a downtown street vendor, I sat down in front of the Bank of America building.

And four seconds later, before I had taken a bite, a panhandler asked me if I had a dollar he could use to ride the bus.

“The big stick: A lot of people who saw Sunday’s reader challenge knew that the huge Cold War bomber nicknamed “The Peacemaker” was the B-36.

“If you ever heard the sound of one flying overhead, you’d never forget it,” wrote Jeff Bowers.

“Tough love: “About 30 years ago I had finally managed to lose my ‘baby weight’ and was pretty happy to go buy a new swimsuit in a much smaller size,” wrote Marilyn Wigen. “My daughter, who was about 4 years old at the time — yep, four years to lose the baby weight — was with me in the dressing room. She brutally brought me back to reality when she said, ‘That’s really cute, Mom, but your legs are kind of floppy.’ “

“After a fashion: “I guess now I know how it feels to be someone who names their kid Destinee or some such — I’ve been ridiculed in your column for something that seems normal to me,” wrote David Vega of Moses Lake. “As a community college teacher, I wear short-sleeve shirts with ties pretty often. And no, my mother doesn’t dress me.”

Vega said he is now self-conscious about it. But he isn’t sure he wants to alter his ways and then feel that he is “knuckling under.”

Don’t change, David. It’s what’s in your heart that matters.

“Not-so-precious bodily fluids: “I work downtown and have a very nice view of the street level activity,” wrote Renae Allen. “Why is it that men/boys are always spitting?”

Renae, this behavior stems from a gross misunderstanding of how males pass along their genes.

“”Marmot” as a verb: Victor Buksbazen suggested it could be synonymous with “idle,” as in to while away an extended period of time without accomplishing anything in particular.

“Two for Tuesday: 1. A reader whose name I will keep to myself told about a church organist who would clip her nails during the sermon.

2. Several callers were incensed at my suggestion that there might be people working at GU and Whitworth who disdain the schools’ religious underpinnings.

“Today’s Slice question: If you decided to go this route, where would you want to have your ashes sprinkled?