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The Slice: Being dingy seems to be OK nowadays

Maybe it’s just me.

But it seems like there’s less fretting lately about car dings. You know, chips and dents in the sides of vehicles resulting from careless door-flingers parking in adjacent spaces.

What might explain this?

A) We have become desensitized to stupid, inconsiderate behavior by the sheer volume of it. Nobody likes dings, but the outrage factor has been defused because we are no longer surprised. B) The heyday of Yuppies parking diagonally over two spaces (and sometimes getting their expensive cars abused as a comment on this) has passed. C) During periods when new-car sales lag, fewer people care. D) Improved parking lot etiquette. E) Protective rubbery ridges. F) Fewer people exiting vehicles as if blowing the hatch on space capsules. G) Other.

Speaking of parking lots: Mike Altman saw a hooded woman struggling in the rain to get into a blue Buick. He suggested that she try the identical blue Buick two spaces away.

That did the trick.

Family Phrases Department: “While we were decorating our Christmas tree, our 4-year-old son, Jeremy, asked if we could put garlic on the tree again,” wrote Steve Ball. “Twenty-one years later, the box containing garlands is still marked GARLIC.”

Amy Shives’ daughter is responsible for her family referring to a certain store as “Toys For Us.”

When Brian Riggs’ kids were still in elementary school they returned from a coastal vacation full of talk about “fish tigers.”

They meant sea lions.

And then there’s this, from Bill Schwerin: “One morning, I told my daughter and 4-year-old grandson, Joe, that I would take them out for breakfast. He asked me if we were going to go to Jump Eyes.”

He meant IHOP.

Had enough of these yet?

Today’s Slice question: How many doctors and nurses played the battery-powered game Operation when they were kids?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098; e-mail pault@spokesman.com. Sharing a fondness for rock walls is a sign of compatibility.

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