Might want to have your dog call in sick

Two weeks from today is Take Your Dog to Work Day.

Here are three reasons why this is a bad idea.

1. The custodians already hate everyone.

2. Has no one ever heard of allergies?

3. Dragging a dog to certain gasbag meetings could constitute cruelty to animals.

•Slice answers: Marcia Niles addressed the needed skill set for living out in the country.

Her list includes the following.

Organization and concentration: “When the nearest store is 25 miles away, it is imperative to have a good memory or a good list.”

Flexibility: “Helps you cope with deficiencies from item 1.”

Happiness with your own company: “It doesn’t hurt to have hobbies that flourish in solitude.”

Community: You don’t have to live shoulder to shoulder with your neighbors to know that you can count on them.

Based on recent personal experience, Bobbie Williams said one necessity of rural living would be having enough food on hand to comfortably weather being snowed in for nine days.

Libby Beck said city dwellers who assume that there’s nothing to do out in the country just don’t get it. There are always fences to be fixed and horses to be cared for, she said.

Mike O’Neal wrote, “Country people live a life; city people craft a life-style.”

And Jean Flanigen shared the lyrics of a song she wrote. It’s called “Dirt Road Kind of Girl.”

Here’s the chorus.

I’m a dirt road kind of girl

I like a pace that’s slower

Let everyone go zipping past

I’ll take a different path

‘cause I’m a dirt road kind of girl

•Speaking of back roads: Susan Rupp lives on one. Last winter, she noticed that the post supporting her mailbox had been snapped in two. The whole mess was resting on a snow berm. She assumed a driver had slid into it on the slippery road.

“Since we were on our way to work we did nothing,” she wrote.

Later that day, upon coming home, she discovered that the mailbox pole had been repaired with some large nails. “Must have been a neighbor with a conscience.”

•Hi ho, Hi ho: Gary Wisben wonders which of the Seven Dwarfs Spokane residents relate to most closely.

•Overheard in a cycling shop (mother talking to her excited young son): “OK, but first we have to talk to them about Grandma’s bike.”

•Today’s Slice question: Slice reader Will Barnes grew up in an Oregon town where the local newspaper’s motto was “Covers Harney County like the Sagebrush.”

So what should the S-R’s motto be?