The Slice: From the director of ‘The View’ …

A note arrived from Victoria and Patrick Van Inwegen.

“We thought you might enjoy the following story, which really reminded us that kids today don’t travel the way we used to,” they wrote.

“As we were getting close to Spokane after five hours driving home from McCall, Idaho, our children were trying to decide which movie to watch in the van’s DVD player.”

Alex, 8, had a proposal for his 5-year-old sister, Ella. “Let’s just watch the scenery since we are getting so close,” he said.

Ella was baffled. She thought she was familiar with the family’s movie collection. But she couldn’t recall having watched “The Scenery.”

Your name as a verb: Vince Roland said to “Vince” the dishwasher would mean to rearrange the dishes in an obsessive/compulsive manner.

Mary Ann Barney said that to “Mary Ann” would be to spend time in bed reading.

Slice answer: The question about scars from kitchen mishaps reminded Moses Lake’s Carol Bending of a time when as a little girl she was visiting her aunt and uncle in San Francisco. She tripped and fell while carrying two glass milk bottles, cutting her thumb.

“We also had home delivery by a milkman in Redmond, Ore., where I grew up,” she added. “He actually brought the milk in through the back door and put it right into our fridge.”

Failure to grasp the concept: As that famous saying goes, the future is already here, it just isn’t evenly distributed.

“I suppose a lot of older individuals (like myself) were given one of those high tech reader/tablets,” wrote Denise Marcum.

Marcum happened to overhear just such a gift recipient talking to a younger person about her new device. The woman expressed an interest in biographies and the younger person tapped on the gadget for a few moments and reported that there were 23,000 available.

“Oh, heavens,” the older woman replied. “There is no place I can put them in my apartment.”

Today’s Slice question: How would the Spokane area be different if there had never been an Air Force base here?