The Slice: These Twelve Days can wait

Everybody sing!

On the first day of Sprinkler Blowout Season, my true love gave to me…

On second thought, let’s move on.

•Slice answers: After asking readers why they deserve a handsome S-R cap, several noted that they have been longtime subscribers. Another suggested that he deserved one because he has defended The Slice in conversations with friends incapable of grasping the concept of an items column.

But I’m declaring Liberty Lake’s John Nelson the winner.

He said he’s got a bald spot on the back of his head that looks like a baboon’s butt.

•Working through it: Readers of the Today section will remember Heather Lalley. She wrote many elegant feature stories here before moving to Chicago a few months ago.

The other day, she sent me a note about her little boy.

“Nick was having a meltdown last night because his temporary tattoo ripped while he was trying to put it on his arm. Frank bends down to tickle him, to try to snap him out of his little freak out. And Nick (4.5 going on 45) says, ‘Go away, I’m having a moment.’ ”

I’m sure we can all relate.

That expression is in the public domain. So feel free to use it at home or at work.

“Paul, Mr. Cowles wants to see you.”

“Go away, I’m having a moment.”

•True or false: Actresses Dyan Cannon and Annette Bening each portrayed a woman who lived in Spokane for a short time.

Tick … tick … tick … OK, time’s up.

True. In 1991’s “Bugsy,” Bening played mobster girlfriend Virginia Hill. And in 1974, Cannon appeared in “The Virginia Hill Story.”

•In the matter of where you’ll find worse driving – near a high school or near a retirement community: The Slice heard from a reader named Peggy who should know. Her daughter’s high school is on one side of a long fence. Her parents’ retirement village is on the other.

But she refused to testify on the grounds that she doesn’t want to get caught in the middle.

•Tuesday quiz winner: A fair number of readers knew that Susan (Carnahan) Peters was the Academy Award-nominated actress born in Spokane whose career was derailed by a hunting accident. I’m declaring movie buff Eric Roth of Nine Mile Falls the winner because he was first.

•Today’s Slice question: If your family, neighborhood or workplace had a Latin motto, what would it be?