The Slice: Our wish: Driver, meet telephone pole

I wish it were simply urban legend.

Or maybe just something that took place only in “The Grapes of Wrath.”

But every once in a while, I hear another report from someone I trust. So I know it happens.

A driver will veer out of his way to intentionally run over a small animal crossing a highway.

God help us. What a sorry species we can be.

Have you ever seen that?

•Just wondering: Should American sports leagues adopt the relegation/promotion model of English soccer?

Say, if Washington State finished last in Pac 10 football, it would go down to the Big Sky Conference next year. And the Big Sky champion, say, Weber State, would go up to the Pac 10.

The possibilities in basketball are also quite intriguing. But you get the idea.

•Re: the accuracy of those personality profiles based on street names (Friday’s Slice): Nancy Zietlow lives on Fairview and she said, yes, it’s true. Dogs do like her.

•Coyote sightings: “My most memorable one happened early one morning a few years ago,” wrote Mark Majeski.

“We live near Whitworth University, and that morning our dogs were barking so frantically I got up to see what was causing it. Out our front window I saw a coyote in our front yard who had cornered the neighbor’s cat. In the time it took me to get to the front door, the coyote had killed the cat and was taking it up the hill to Five Mile. I can still recall it vividly.”

•The quintessential Spokane sack lunch: Joe Booth said it would include either a meatloaf sandwich or a BLT.

•Personally, I prefer “Holstein”: But a friend told about a guy who named his black and white cat “Cop Car.”

•Re: Monday’s Slice: Someone asked how I know there is hostility toward walkers and bikers in Spokane.

I know because I have written many times about being a pedestrian and a cyclist and I almost always hear from readers who disdain both.

There are some troubled motorists in Spokane so freaked out by people making choices different from their own that it’s like they wish the 1968 Chicago police would wade in and club us down. It’s crazy.

Plus, let’s face it. A few pedestrians and cyclists occasionally behave like jerks. That doesn’t help.

I suppose I myself have been a jerk a time or two. But in my defense, at least I wear normal clothes.

•Today’s Slice question: Have you changed your opinion over the years about which is your favorite cookie?