The Slice: A typo spells out a new idea

The question was “Do you ever wear your warmest coat?”

My thinking in posing that had been shaped by a couple of factors. One, it doesn’t seem to stay bitterly cold all that long in recent winters. And, two, I know some of us like to keep our Big Bertha parka in reserve even if it is frigid outside. You know, for the psychological reasons.

So I know a few among us hardly ever wear their warmest coats.

But one reader wrote to say she did, often when attending Washington State’s last home football game of the season. She misspelled “coat,” though.

She wrote, “I always wear my warmest cat…”

That put me in mind of the old frontiersman’s winter survival tactic of slumbering with heat-source dogs, as in “three dog night.”

But what about cats? When it gets chilly in your home at night, do you welcome the warming presence of furry felines sleeping on top of you?

Ever had a three cat night?

Hats off to youthful curiosity: Greg Baker’s 7-year-old son, Ian, noticed the statue of Abraham Lincoln in downtown Spokane the other day. It was snowing and the frozen precipitation was accumulating on the still figure. Noting that the statue has Lincoln holding his hat at the side, Ian wondered why the president wasn’t wearing it.

Warm-up question: How many people who claim to have watched the first Super Bowl on TV in 1967 (it wasn’t officially called that yet) are not telling the truth?

(Yes, I watched. You might say I was ahead of my time in terms of obsession with the National Football League. My interest in the NFL peaked in the late 1960s. I still shake my head in amazement that my bantam hockey coach in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., Mr. McGaughey, scheduled a Sunday practice that conflicted with the Jets vs. Colts Super Bowl in 1969. Can you imagine anyone doing that today?)

Today’s Slice question: Remember when the taxidermied polar bear used to greet travelers out at Spokane International Airport? Well, if you got to choose, what should take its place?

A) Bigfoot. B) Parking lot seagull from Dick’s. C) Cougar. D) Osprey. E) Eagle. F) Steelhead. G) Bull marmot. H) A spotted Zag. I) Locally unearthed mammoth fossils. J) Vintage Jaguar XKE. K) Other.

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Chet Nelson was not specific about plans for his milestone 2016 birthday, but he said that at his age, every birthday is a milestone birthday.