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The Slice: Mail carrier makes special delivery
Consider the story of Valleyford’s Helen Pestana and her elderly beagle, Daisy.
Last week, Daisy disappeared and Helen was beside herself. She looked for her faithful companion all around the area surrounding her rural home but couldn’t find the dog.
Daisy was overdue for her medication and Helen was in tears. The not knowing, that’s the worst.
Eventually, Helen spotted Daisy out in a field covered with fairly deep snow.
Apparently the low-slung pet had gotten herself out there but was too exhausted to make it back to the road.
Helen is in her 80s. She couldn’t very well march out there to retrieve the stranded animal herself. So she enlisted the aid of her mail carrier, a guy named Chuck.
Chuck rescued Daisy and, in a sense, he rescued Helen, too.
Just wondering: How many stories does a building need to have before using the stairs can be someone’s wintertime exercise regimen?
Slice answers: It used to be that when James McDonald’s wife would come into the room and ask about a TV show he was watching he would offer a brief explanation of the story and present a couple of possible plot outcomes. Now she just picks up a remote and hits “Info.”
“A win-win solution,” said McDonald.
Another reader, who asked that I keep her name to myself, told about one charming scenario.
She will be watching a program when a certain female relative comes in and demands to be caught up on the story.
Then, while my correspondent tries to explain what has happened in the story so far, she gets that unmistakable “Stop talking!” hand gesture from the other woman, who has already become engrossed in what’s happening on-screen.
Warm-up questions: Would you rather be described as a drifter or as a loner? Will there be a dress code at your Super Bowl party? Do you ever look at the trash in your car and shake your head in mild self-loathing but then do nothing about it? Did you ever see Forbes Kennedy play when he was with the Spokane Comets?
Today’s Slice question: Do apartment dwellers eventually get used to hearing sounds coming through the walls from adjacent units or is it an ongoing source of tension?
Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. If you have a milestone birthday this year, how do you plan to note the occasion?