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The Slice: Let’s do the time warp again
We know who we are.
Spokane area residents who grew up in the East might remember when waiting up for midnight to arrive on the West Coast (three hours after it had already happened in the Eastern time zone) made you a person of some standing when it came to seeing in the new year.
State of mind: Spokane’s Jim McCall is pretty sure he got special treatment he probably didn’t deserve.
“But I did not lie or cheat anybody out of anything,” he said.
He was in the American consulate in Hong Kong, to arrange a visa for business travel in China. He had done this before, on previous trips.
But there was a glitch having to do with his passport. He faced a wait of several days before he could have an appointment with anyone who could help him.
A consular official, a man who seemed to be Chinese, asked him where he was from.
“I told him Washington.”
That started the ball rolling and before long Jim’s problem was addressed.
“I never bothered to ask anybody if they were aware that there are two Washingtons.”
Slice answers: Several readers said yes, they knew someone who had been expelled from Sunday school. Apparently asking too many questions and persistent skepticism isn’t always welcome.
But what really caught my eye were a couple of answers that didn’t have anything to do with Sunday school.
“My two schnauzers got expelled from puppy school,” wrote Kim Turner. “Class was held on Sunday. Does that count?”
I asked for details.
“I think Simon was trying to protect his sister, Sadie, from the big dogs in the class. He started barking and crying the minute we walked in. He was so loud that nobody could hear the teacher’s instructions. They became puppy school dropouts when the teacher kindly suggested that ‘individual instruction’ may be more appropriate for them. We all left with our tails between our legs.”
Then there was this from Carol Stobie.
“No to getting kicked out of Sunday school, but the mailman wouldn’t deliver the mail to our porch unless we kept my little brother, Douglas, inside.”
What? Did Douglas bite?
“No. He swore at the mailman, and he didn’t get it from me. He was about 4 at the time.”
Today’s Slice question: Do you have a favorite New Year’s Eve scene in a movie?
Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Ever actually see someone wearing a lampshade?