The Slice: This letter could prove quite revealing

Karen Erickson recently received a form letter from her South Hill fitness club.

It addressed a remodeling of the facilities. The club will remain open during the project, but members were warned to expect a few inconveniences.

One particular passage caught Erickson’s eye: “We would like to encourage you to bare with us during the construction of your new club.”

Does that mean members will be asked to disrobe and exercise in the nude? Will club staffers be similarly undressed?

Yikes. Under those conditions, would you really want to be next in line for an exer-cycle?

Erickson conjured images of over-the-hill club members assembled in the buff around the drained swimming pool.

“It’s not the prettiest picture,” she wrote.

The writer of the form letter probably meant to say “bear with us.”

But this is 2008. You never know.

“Highlight from the ‘07-‘08 Ice Palace season concluding today: As the hour neared for the start of a public skating session, this boy who already had his skates on saw me lacing up mine. “Is it all right to go on now, sir?” he asked.

I gave him the OK.

So does that make me an honorary Parks and Recreation employee? Do I now qualify for city benefits?

“If you sincerely do not want to talk about college basketball: It’s almost time to get your stay-away game face on.

“Just wondering: What parking-lot snow pile will last the longest?

“Family dynamics and sharing: Carol Kettleson has decent credentials to assess what makes an only child tick. In addition to being one herself, she married one and is the mother of one.

She wrote, “An only child can tell you that there truly is a big half.”

“Slice answer (when a friend or relative keeps e-mailing you things you don’t want to see): “If a nice polite ‘Please don’t send me this kind of stuff’ doesn’t work, sending it back 50 times without comment usually works,” wrote Walter Lane of Spokane.

“She means no offense: But Coeur d’Alene’s Debbie Miller says that the name of the development called “The Village” makes her think of a horror movie.

Perhaps she is thinking of those classic films, “Village of the Damned” or “Village of the Transplanted Californians.”

“Today’s Slice question: Who holds the local record for going the longest without ever addressing one’s spouse by his or her actual first name?