The Slice: No pooh-poohing the questions

In honor of this being the birthday of the late A. A. Milne, creator of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, The Slice presents a job application for stuffed bears.

If you are considering adding any small bruins to your household lineup, you might want to have the candidates answer the following questions. (Sometimes the best results are obtained when children conduct the interviews with the applicant bears.)

Can your urge to maul be curbed to a reasonable extent?

Would you be able to peacefully coexist with stuffed rabbits?

Are you capable of helping your person achieve sound sleep?

Assuming you get the position and stay with us for years and get nicked up a bit, will you be afraid of a little needle and thread?

Will you be happy in the Spokane area or will you be one of those bears who is always going on and on about Alaska or Montana?

Will you know what to say when an innocent youth has been cruelly and unjustly punished by a parental unit who seems to have insane control issues about cookie allotments?

Do you enjoy hearing about how the Lewis and Clark party’s first encounters with ursus arctos horribilis practically left the explorers with soiled britches?

Is it your view that children facing a difficult day at kindergarten have a right to hibernate?

Do you regard yourself as the top of the food chain?

Will you be capable of switching into inanimate “stuffed” mode when certain older siblings are about, so as to avoid spilling any of our secrets?

Any problem relating to a child who has peanut butter breath?

Don’t you think Spokane County needs more than three commissioners?

Can you subsist on a diet of huckleberries and baby-sister underbelly?

Would you hold it against someone if a nocturnal upset-stomach incident necessitated your being run through a couple of wash cycles?

Do you hog the bed?

Are you up for some road trips this summer?

If we took you camping, would you promise not to signal your larger relations to come and steal our food?

When mom is reading us a story and has gone into that bored monotone of hers, will you refrain from lashing out and disfiguring her horribly?

When all other friends can’t be found, will I be able to count on you to be there for me?

Do you like having hot chocolate and watching the snow fall?

Have you had chicken pox?

Not that it will ever happen, but would you understand if one day I got older and, you know, things changed?

What is your full name?

When can you start?

•Today’s Slice questions: What were you surprised to hear strangers say about you when they thought you wouldn’t be able to hear?