The Slice: Comments should be self-disabled

Gail Groth recently oversaw an estate sale at her late mother’s home.

The eye-opening experience convinced her that at least some people around here regard these events as being essentially the same as yard sales. You know, rough-and-tumble haggling and lots of free and open commentary on the relative merits of everything for sale.

Anything goes, in other words.

Groth disagrees. So she has a request.

Next time you’re at an estate sale, try to show a little sensitivity.

You don’t have to buy anything that strikes you as overpriced. But keep in mind the context of the event and think about how you would want strangers to conduct themselves in the home of one of your own departed relatives.

Epitaphs: Dana Freeborn said she and her husband, Tom, have joked that his gravestone will say, “He was working on it.”

Les Norton wouldn’t mind if his said, “Hey kids, it’s ‘You’re welcome,’ not ‘No problem.’ ”

More drawbacks to hanging clothes out on a line to dry: Nadine Joubert said she would prefer that her laundry not smell like her neighbor’s cigarettes or charcoal smoke.

There’s no guarantee that he will: But if singer/actor Steve Earle spends a little time walking around downtown when he’s here for a concert next month, maybe a few people familiar with HBO programming will pass him on the sidewalk and wonder if they have stumbled into an episode of “The Wire” or “Treme.”

Sunny day, sweepin’ the clouds away: Karen Buck said her disapproving reaction to local TV news leading with the weather has become so familiar to her long-suffering son that he now just sighs and says, “Not again.”

Medical care for children’s stuffed animals: Karen Botker once had to perform a “radical full-rattle replacement surgical procedure” on her son’s toy rabbit.

“Bunny lived through it,” she said.

Today’s Slice question: What percentage of Spokane sunglasses wearers are chiefly interested in how the dark lenses make them look?