Slice answers annex

Here are a few readers’ answers to Slice questions that did not make it into the print column.

Rick McDonald saw the question about gullibility and told a tale on himself.

“I was barely a teenager when I landed an after school job in the stockroom at Nagler’s shoes in downtown Spokane in the 1970s.

“One afternoon, after a shipment of fall shoes came in, the shelves were full requiring me to stack shoeboxes in the narrow aisles. Al, a friendly shoe salesman, informed me that I should use the shelf stretcher in these situations, but that they had lent it to another shoe store down the street, so I would have to go get it.

“Happy to get out of the stockroom and into the summer sun, I gladly walked the couple of blocks to the competing store as they directed. Upon inquiry, the salesman there said it was no longer there, but they had lent it to yet a third shop, and he gave me directions. As I turned to go, the salesman couldn’t contain his grin and I knew my workplace initiation was on.

“I returned to Nagler’s and was greeted by a sales floor of smiling salesmen. It was even funny to me at the time, and I felt better after they told me about the last stock boy they sent to hunt down their left-handed shoe horn.

“Not trusting everything the salesman says was just the first of many eye-opening things I came to learn in the stockroom of that store.”

George Abelhanz shared this. “On the day of the funeral for Martin Luther King, Jr., two of us told our gullible co-worker that in honor of Dr. King the company was going to be paying all the black employees one dollar more per hour for that day. It wasn’t long after that he went down to the supervisor’s office wanting to know why only those employees would be getting the extra dollar.”

In the matter of funeral music, Joan Matlack recalled that “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers was played at the service for a poker loving friend of hers.

In response to another question, Shelley Davis reported that her great nephew Maverick called her and her husband Uncle LeVon and “Umple” Shelley.

On another front, Bruce Werner weighed in with this. “How about rewatching a film not because you forgot what happens, but for the sheer beauty of the film and/or the soundtrack? For me, I watch ‘Barry Lyndon’ a couple of times a year as well as having the soundtrack in my truck.”

The question about laundry disasters fetched a number of answers.

This one’s from Steve Gump. “In the mid-‘60s, my girlfriend and I took a load of clothes to the neighborhood laundromat. The washing machine was a front loader with the opening for detergent on the top. Neither of us knew how much soap to put in, so I told her to just dump a bunch in. Bad idea. We had suds spewing out of the top like an erupting volcano, and it was like it was never going to end.”

In her high school days, Janet Culbertson once washed her boyfriend’s sweatshirt in the same load as his briefs. “Result: robin’s egg blue underwear. We all laughed but he was not amused.”

Cheri Deters remembered a time when her little brother threw a handful of crayons into the dryer with a load of white clothes. “Early tie-dying tendencies perhaps.”

Donna Potter Phillips remembers this one.

“Back in 1962 when my hubby was a brand new Navy seaman, he wanted the white-est white hats in his unit. So he put several in a big pan of water, mixed liberally with Clorox, and boiled them on the stove. Imagine his surprise when, during the rinsing and holding the hat under running water, the water tore right through the bleach-weakened fabric. But they were certainly white.”

And Milt Nelson was among those who admitted to laundering their cellphones.

After asking about things that bother you even though most don’t seem troubled by these behaviors, The Slice heard from Randy Severson. “When I see someone driving a car with a dog in their lap, it irritates me.”

Carol Baxter answered the question about responses to people who ignore your cheerful greeting. “That happens to me all the time when I am out walking my little dog, Angel. I always speak to the other person when I encounter them. If they don’t respond, I say to myself, ‘Don’t let a smile crack your face.’”

Nancy Zaborski gives people the benefit of the doubt. “When someone ignores my greeting, I just assume they forgot their hearing aids. I do that often enough myself and hope for gracious understanding.”

And after The Slice asked about the wisdom of viewing The Three Stooges as role models, Ed Wagnild recalled a day in grade school over in Hartline, Wash.

Ed and a friend were in the restroom. Ed was down on the floor, demonstrating how Curly would lie on his side and “run” around in circles. His friend was standing on the radiator.

Ed saw an adult entering the restroom (the man’s shoes were visible beneath a modesty shield), so he sprang to his feet and bolted out of there. This left his audience to explain to the superintendent of schools just why he was standing on the radiator.

“When he returned to the classroom, I asked if he had gotten into trouble. He said the superintendent simply said ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in class?’ He did not rat on me.”

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.