The Slice: Best enhanced performer goes to …

I have said this before.

But for some of us, cleavage-watching is the chief appeal of the Academy Awards show.

I wonder, though. Has this all-American pastime been tainted in recent years by the use of cleavage-enhancing substances?

Should the academy institute a program of bust-testing? Will this period in podium-performance history one day be dismissed because of the use of artificial augmentation?

Will this be known as the “implants era”?

Whatever. I’m not even planning to watch tonight, to protest “Gran Torino” getting snubbed.

•When unflattering stereotypes get stuck in your head: Slice reader Bob Curry was on a Carribean cruise recently.

One night, he had his evening meal in a dining room where people get dressed up. He saw a man at another table wearing a ball cap.

A thought instantly popped into Curry’s head: Is that guy from Spokane?

•Re: The Slice’s assertion that it doesn’t make sense to wash your car at this time of year: “I would love to get my van washed even with all the grime out there,” wrote Kathryn Bonnett. “For at least a day or two, it would cut down on the amount of laundry created when my 3-year-old (and her big brothers) insist on walking the length of the van while leaning against it.”

Then there was the following e-mail exchange, which made me laugh because of the nonproportional hostility.

Reader: “Regarding NOT getting your car washed: I suppose you could say the same thing about your socks or your underwear. Why wash them? They’re just gonna get dirty again.”

The Slice: “The two don’t strike me as comparable. But OK. Thanks for the note.”

Reader: “You’re kidding, right? Not comparable? Both get dirty, both need washing. I guess it goes over your head.”

The Slice: “Right.”

Reader: “Right. Must be that East Coast thing you brought with you.”

•Conspiracy theory: Nancye Hensz gets her prescriptions refilled at a big box store. But even though she does everything right when calling them in, they’re never ready when she arrives several days later to pick them up.

The people at the pharmacy are nice about it. They say that if she can just give them some time, they’ll get them ready for her.

“Guess what I do with that hour?” said Hensz. “I shop for stuff. Every time. I can’t be the only one.”

•A friend passed along an obit from The Canberra Times: Noel Flanagan, the personable Australian who ran his nation’s popular pavilion at Expo ’74, died recently at the age of 91.

•Today’s Slice question (finish this sentence): Nothing says “Spokane” like…