The Slice: Maybe it was just swimmer’s itch

Sue Chapin was entertained by the proximity of a “gonorrhea” headline and a “memories of the lake” headline on the front of Tuesday’s features section.

“Simultaneously interesting and disturbing,” she said.

Personal maps of Spokane: Kevin Miller described the location of his home as “one cigarette from Northtown.”

In other words, by his reckoning, his house is about where smokers leaving the mall toss their butts. “Don’t get me started,” he wrote.

Slice answers: Most readers telling about severing ties with a church over one sermon actually referred to a sermon that was more of a last straw than an isolated incident. Repeatedly beating the drum for financial donations to the church was a theme mentioned by several readers.

Mary Ann Barney told about a doctrinal dispute with a minister. She wrote to him expressing multiple reservations about a particular sermon. “A couple of months later, he preached virtually the same sermon, except that it was peppered with ‘I know not everyone agrees with me but….’ ”

Barney and her husband left, “And never looked back.”

Looking ahead: Karen Buck didn’t need The Slice’s recent preseason pep talk. She’s already a fan of winter.

She likes to stand on her porch when it is snowing late at night. “The trees all around my house filter the snow as it seeks the ground, creating a faint hissing sound.”

In the matter of whether people who work at Spokane area credit unions tend to be better looking than bank employees: “Yep, CU people are without a doubt better looking,” wrote Steve Wilder. “Of course, I’m not totally unbiased because I’m one of them.”

Slice answers: Spokane Valley’s Gary Smith said that if he was a snake at a religious service where worshippers handle serpents, “I would bite anyone who touched me.”

“Bite ’em all,” said Duane Steiger.

Today’s Slice question: Who sees more exclamation points – middle school English teachers or those on Facebook connected to lots of young parents?