The Slice: Wayward mail brings neighbors together

It’s common for neighbors to not know one another these days.

But on my block, the U.S. Postal Service is bringing people together.

A rash of misdelivered mail has prompted neighbors to walk the errant envelopes down or across the street. Sometimes this leads to introductions, allows the recipients to express sincere thanks, et cetera.

It’s actually kind of nice.

One Coeur d’Alene woman’s reply to the gentleman fed up with switching airline seats to accommodate families (Thursday’s Slice): “Great. Here’s my 4-year-old. And a packet of Kleenex for his runny nose, otherwise he’s likely to wipe his nose on your shirt. You have Angry Birds on your phone, right? Because he’ll want to play that. A lot. I’ll be 12 rows away because the airline screwed up our reservations. Enjoy your flight.”

Well-engineered luxury, man: “I work at a small car dealership that fixes Mercedes-Benz,” wrote Nancy Burke. “Sometimes the hood emblems break off and are unusable. So I have one of those as my key ring.”

She continued. “While checking out at the grocery today I needed to show the cashier my store card, which is on that ring.”

The cashier noticed the repurposed hood ornament and exclaimed. “Oh, it’s the peace symbol! How cool!”

Not quite. “Sigh,” wrote Burke. “I just didn’t feel like going there. Can you run a picture showing the difference?”

Warm-up question: Does watching Olympic skiing on TV tempt recreational skiers to try maneuvers that are beyond their abilities?

Today’s Slice question: Who will be the first president of the United States from the Northwest? (Feel free to name someone who lives in your home and who, until quite recently, spent much of the day burping up.)