The Slice: Come for the Q, stay for the A

Let’s empty out a stocking stuffed with Slice answers.

Anne Albrecht saw the question about the effectiveness of admonishing your cat to stay away from the Christmas tree.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” she wrote.

Elsewhere on the pets front, Lanny Calkins described how his dog demonstrates a desire to be fed.

The pooch in question is King Leonitus (Leo for short), a tri-color cocker spaniel. “He will tap his ceramic food bowl three times with his toenails (and the bowl rings) to let us know that it is empty and he is ready to eat. After doing that for a few minutes and no one answers his call, he then kicks the bowl onto the wood floor with a big clunk and that gets our attention.”

In the matter of how you know you are not a typical resident of the Inland Northwest, Nadine Joubert was ready with a response.

“I change out of my pajamas and flip-flops when I go out, plus I don’t wear blue jeans to funerals and formal weddings.”

Blake Ballard completed the recent fill-in-the-blank exercise. “I saw Mommy (standing by the fireplace with a Dustbuster, cleaning up the soot as fast as it fell off of) Santa Claus.”

Colville’s Linda Hall figured she might be in the running for having the oldest ice skates still in use. “They were a Christmas gift from my folks 51 years ago. They were so big then I had to wear several pairs of socks. Now one thin pair works nicely.”

She has worn them to skate in the Inland Northwest and Alaska. “Although they haven’t been in use lately, it’s only because of the lack of ice near where I live now. They are ready to go.”

And a number of readers noted they attended the Seattle Seahawks’ preseason game at Joe Albi in the team’s inaugural season, 1976. Included among them was Wendell E. Smith. It was fairly early in his long facilities management career with the city.

“Not only did I attend the game, I painted the field (artificial turf), helped set up the goal posts and raised the flag!”

I guess that counts as having been there.

If you cross paths with Wendell sometime, ask him to tell you about what the Mount St. Helens ash did to the stadium’s field in 1980.

Hint: It wasn’t good.

Today’s Slice question: What would happen if you tried to subsist on fruitcake and eggnog?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Workplace podmates referring to you as “the wall of sound” is not really a Spectoresque seasonal tribute.