The Slice: Every dream kitchen comes with all the fixin’s

The Slice asked readers how they would remodel their kitchens if cost was not an issue.

“The kitchen remodel would include live-in quarters for a chef, who would do all the shopping for the nutritious and interesting meals he or she would prepare, serve and clean up after,” wrote Jan Sauer.

And Mike Stirn suggested “We’d buy a new house.”

When you get used to providing your date of birth: Coeur d’Alene’s Mary Lou Wilson spent time in the hospital earlier this year where she learned to add her DOB every time she was asked her name. That impulse did not go away even after she got home and a clerk at a quilt shop was the one doing the asking.

Slice reader Victoria Williamson wonders: “Do all cats hate the scent of orange?”

Secrets to getting a crying baby to sleep: “When my oldest grandson was a few weeks old I would sing ‘Sweet Betsy from Pike’ to him while holding him in my rocking chair,” wrote Carolyn Lenhard, of Wallace. “This would work every time. I found this out by exhausting my repertoire and finally trying this song. It didn’t work with the other 11 grandchildren. My youngest granddaughter would quiet down and go to sleep if I started with a rousing rendition of ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad’ and finished with ‘Dona Nobis Pacem.’ Some of my sweetest memories of my grandchildren were singing to them.”

Fran Menzel shared this. “My secret technique is the three S’s…Shush-Stroke-Sway. Repeat in a monotone. Shshshshsh…stroke in circles on the baby’s back, and sway back and forth.”

When smoke gets on your clothes: “When I transferred from a small elementary school to a junior high in the ’80s, I did not have my own room, I had a desk in the teachers’ lounge, which had no outside ventilation,” wrote Greg Jesberger. “At least 20 on staff smoked like a chimney. I would come home after teaching to strange looks from Jan. Finally she asked me if I had started going to a bar after work, I stank so bad of smoke.”

Today’s Slice question: What qualifies you to be my yard sale consultant?