The Slice: Pickup driver didn’t know if he was coming or going

Some questions are harder to answer than others.

“I noticed a well-used pickup truck in Coeur d’Alene with a pair of young guys in it,” wrote Lew VanDeMark.

He was behind it. Only one of the truck’s brake lights worked.

“When I pulled alongside at a stop light, I told the driver that his left brake light wasn’t working.”

So the young guy in the truck asked Lew, “Front or back?”

Uh …

“Lucky for me, the light changed and I didn’t have to pursue the conversation any further.”

If you tacked “fest” onto your last name, the event that it described would be … : “Well, it all depends,” wrote Steve Wilder. “If you shorten the ‘i’ it might be a terrific event in the great outdoors. If you use the correctly pronounced long ‘i’ it might just be an attempt to one-up last year’s fest.”

Yes, she figured out where that smell was coming from: “Unfortunately, it was me,” wrote Annette LaCombe. “My dog had a run-in with a skunk one morning last week. I took a shower after bathing her but obviously the odor stayed with me. Within the first half-hour of work, two people asked me ‘What is that smell?’ ”

One co-worker suggested the office smelled like burnt rubber.

“It was a long day.”

Re: The Slice’s offer to donate used syringes: Mike Cressey, the Spokane Lilac Festival Association’s president, said he would be a worthy recipient.

“I will make sure that we paint them purple, stuff them with lilacs and include them as decorations on our float in the Armed Forces Torchlight Parade.”

He noted that the oversized IV syringes would not be the most unusual float decoration they had used.

I wrote Mike back and told him some readers were suggesting used syringes can always be misused and should be disposed of properly, et cetera.

Mike replied, “OK, but maybe the next question should be ‘Name something that cannot be misused.’ ”

Today’s Slice question: What is the best thing about the National Lentil Festival?