He avoided sudden death by a whisker

North Central High School student Blake Yirak emerged from the bathroom at home after shaving off some facial hair he had cultivated.

He asked his mom if she wished she could, with similar ease, do something to make herself look younger.

She let him live. So far.

•Ball caps and Spokane: “The way people in our area have a good time is to wear their red baseball caps to everything – weddings, funerals and an evening with the symphony,” wrote Mary Farley.

“Is there any place Spokane will not wear a ball cap?” wrote Lisa Paolino. “In my parents’ home.”

Drew Olsen noted that most caps are at least temporarily removed during the national anthem at Spokane Indians games. “Hmmm … maybe that should be played more often.”

Del Schebor wondered if some of these caps are glued on.

Allan Morrison characterized the practice of wearing one to elegant indoor gatherings as “crude.”

Wade Griffith observed that ball caps in inappropriate settings don’t do much for Spokane’s image.

Bill Dropko said he once witnessed a 5-foot-3 bailiff tell several guys that if they didn’t take their caps off, she would personally throw them out of the courtroom.

A visitor from Alaska called to say that one place you don’t wear a ball cap in Spokane is inside his aunt’s house.

And Pat O’Neil described inappropriate ball cap wearing as being part of the “stupid Northwest fashion sense.”

•Poetry corner: Here’s a winter-inspired offering from Slice reader Ann Echegoyen.

In a black-white world

A yellow school bus denies

This is a snow day.

•Slice answers and other stuff: Forrest Schuck’s least favorite KPBX records and videos sale promo involved yodeling.

But Kenyon Fields usually enjoys the radio spots in question.

Lynne Zysk said that, despite what The Slice might think, Al Rossi makes the best French bread around here. “Made from scratch and baked over a portable camp stove.”

Wallace resident Henry Lenhard said the disaster he’s best prepared for would be global warming, assuming it swells the size of the nearby lakes at lower elevations.

K.C. Stacy is another who knows what the weather was like on the day he was born. “Mother felt the pains and had to run about a block to the doctor’s house across a plowed field in a snowstorm.”

Leslie Hunt isn’t sure what the weather was doing when she arrived. But she knows she was born at 6:25 a.m. “My father to this day never lets me forget that I ruined his tee time.”

Several readers reported that it is not unheard of for model railroaders to design elaborate train accident scenes.

And a colleague actually did see a kid’s hot-chocolate stand on the North Side earlier this winter. Apparently it did not last long.

•Today’s Slice questions: Who is the best parallel parker in the Inland Northwest? The worst?