The Slice: Expression answers question by filling in the blank

Here are a couple of family expressions I like.

The first goes back about 35 years. Keith and Teresa Hegg worked at a restaurant that had an exterior gate with a combination lock.

The combination was 1-4-9-2. Once Keith was trying to help another employee retain the numbers. “Just remember the year Columbus discovered America,” he said.

Simple enough, right?

Well, here’s how the employee in question responded. “I missed that one on the test.”

So now, when Keith or Teresa cannot remember something or simply don’t know an answer, that’s what they say.

“I missed that one on the test.”

And many years ago, Judi Durfee saw Peter, Paul and Mary perform live quite a few times. She remembers audiences loved a playful song called “Car-Car,” which consisted of some lyrics and spoken riffing about several teenagers driving around for hours.

At some point in the song there was a depiction of a garbled exchange over a microphone/speaker at a drive-in fast-food place (remember, this was a long time ago). When, in the song, the order clerk inside the restaurant reads back the order over the parking-lot speaker, she concludes with “and two six-packs.”

Sometimes, all these years later, when Judi hears a less-than-clear announcement over a loudspeaker or intercom, she says to her husband, “And two six-packs.”

Railroaded: I guess there is really no way to determine who it is. But someone in the Inland Northwest deserves the honorary title “Spokane Area Resident Who has Traveled the Most Miles by Train.”

If you think it might be you, feel free to make your case.

Remember to celebrate responsibly: It’s Bobby Orr Goal Day on Sunday.

He wasn’t actually flying. He got tripped.

Today’s Slice question: I would trust any of our immediate neighbors with a set of spare house keys. How many of us can say that?

(For the record, this hasn’t always been the case.)