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The Slice: Always good to keep your options open
Let’s move on.
Slice answer: “Thanks for asking the question about the place where we do our best thinking,” wrote Neil Verduin. “This has been the source of some tension in my marriage.”
Here’s his story. “Several years ago I found that I did my best thinking in the prone position. When my wife bought a recliner I discovered that it worked amazingly well for this. After encountering an exceptionally thorny problem during the day, I often retire there after dinner to work it out. Sometimes, if I actually solve the problem, I will celebrate with a few minutes of shut-eye. For some reason my wife seems to always show up during the celebration stage, and has interpreted it as being less than productive time. However, over the years she has discovered it can produce results sometimes bordering on brilliance, so the practice continues.”
What you learned from your divorce: Happily remarried Ellen Sherriffs shared three lessons.
“1.) I’m stronger than I realized. 2.) Forgiveness. 3.) Never make assumptions about another person’s marriage.”
“You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you …”: Was walking east from the Review Tower to a dental appointment on the lower South Hill when I looked up and was reminded of one of my all-time favorite Slice answers.
Early in 1996, The Slice asked what iconic landmark, instead of the Statue of Liberty, Charlton Heston would have come upon at the end of “Planet of the Apes” if the movie had a local setting.
Most responding readers said the Clocktower. But Dean Bethmann suggested it would be the big “BUFFET’ sign rising high in downtown Spokane. “Oh, my Gawd!” would have been Heston’s reaction line, he wrote.
Today’s Slice question: When you can tell someone doesn’t like you but you really have no idea why, what do you do?
A) Just ignore it, if the individual is not someone you need to get along with because of family or work considerations. B) Hold out the possibility that you are misinterpreting the avoidance, dark silence and stink eye. C) Approach this person and say “You don’t like me, do you?” D) Escalate the glowering. E) Undertake a brutal self-assessment, focusing on the Top 20 aspects of your personality that might rub someone the wrong way. F) Ask a third party for an insight. G) Other.
Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. If a college named a dormitory after you, how would “(your last name here) Hall” sound?