The Slice: Nativity scene back with bite

Some manger-scene stories are not found in the New Testament.

“When my sons were young, baby Jesus went on many wonderful adventures with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” wrote Deb Harper. “His life has been boring, even sedentary, since then.”

Until, that is, the arrival of Scout, a border terrier.

There is a chance that Scout, while a good dog, is a heathen.

Harper emailed a couple of photos. One shows a Nativity scene minus the baby Jesus. The other shows the recovered baby Jesus figure after some serious canine chewing or, as Harper put it, “An unauthorized attempt at transubstantiation.”

For the record, Scout left the other manger figures alone. In any event, the Nativity scene is now in a safer spot.

Let heaven and nature sing.

Making a bad situation worse: Dennis Schneider is 72. The mention of “duck and cover” in Monday’s column reminded him of a school paper he wrote during the Cold War.

“As a freshman at Lewis & Clark High School, one English assignment was to write an essay about littering. My main response was to conclude that littering was dangerous because in the event Spokane was hit with an atomic bomb, that candy bar wrapper so carelessly tossed into the street could ignite, and be blown somewhere else, where it could start another fire.

“Years later, when cleaning out the attic of my parents’ house, I found that valuable document, and with the insight that only an older, wiser person can have, realized how utterly ridiculous that concept sounded. I did get a ‘B’ on that essay, however.”

Meet and greet in Hawaii: “A couple of nights ago Mary Pat and I stepped into a hot tub at a resort on the north shore of Kauai,” wrote my friend and former colleague Dan Webster. “A young couple was already there, so to be polite I asked them where they were from.”

You guessed it. “Spokane, Washington.”

Anne and Alfred. It’s a Spokane World, after all.

Today’s Slice question: What’s something many people assume about you that is totally off the mark?