The Slice: What’s the inspiration behind those bright ideas?

It’s all well and good for lifestyle gurus to say the journey is the destination.

But in some of life’s endeavors, it really helps to know where you’re going. That’s certainly true when it comes to putting up outdoor Christmas lights.

So here’s a question.

If you go in for holiday decorative displays, what’s your goal?

To help you plan, here are a dozen possibilities.

1. Make a 50,000-bulb religious statement.

2. Provide a high-voltage beacon that intelligent life in distant galaxies can use to find us.

3. Cause the neighbors across the street to experience intermittent seizures.

4. Appease the jackboot element on my block demanding conformity.

5. Win money, money, money in the spectacular super-colossal Christmas lights and display contest.

6. There are people from all over Spokane who drive through our neighborhood to check out the lights and I want to do my part to put on a good show.

7. My goal is to make my kids smile.

8. I like the feeling I get when I drive up to our house after dark and see the lights, especially when there is snow on the ground.

9. Someone has to pay the salaries of those Avista executives.

10. I pretend that I do it as a parody of this ritual, but the truth is it reminds me of my dad and the countless things he did for us.

11. Every year, right after Thanksgiving, I hear the power grid whisper, “Bring it on.”

12. It’s our version of making a joyful noise.

Workplace code of conduct: How should you respond when colleagues bring in seasonal baked goods?

Do: Say “Thank you.”

Don’t: Kiss your co-worker on the lips.

Do: Praise the treat using specifics.

Don’t: Invite the baker to be your common-law wife.

Do: Babble excitedly with your mouth full of your second cookie.

Don’t: Stuff cash inside the baker’s undergarments.

Today’s Slice question: What’s something you hear people brag about around here that always strikes you as unintentional evidence that Spokane’s jerkwater-town tendencies are alive and well?