The Slice: Who’s in charge here?

Let’s talk about what our pets have trained us to do.

“My ‘big boned’ cat, Rudy, always has food in his bowl,” wrote Patti Baird. “But each time he comes inside he places himself where I am sitting and stares me down until I get up and feed him. Since the bowl is already full, I pretend to put more in.

“This last week, while I was laid up with a pinched nerve in my back, he stared me down until I crawled on all fours, using slippers as knee pads, to his bowl and pretended to put in food. Rudy, joyfully purring, butted my head all the way.”

Nancy Hawley shared this. “We have two wonderful 6-year-old yellow Labs who have trained us well. They tell us it’s time to feed them by getting in our face at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.”

There’s more. “When sitting by the door for some time to go outside doesn’t yield results, they start playing with each other in an overly rambunctious way. Works every time.”

Sally Kuchik shared this. “We have two cats, on different diets. Mickey, the one on duck food, eats in the bathroom. When she wants to nibble on her dry food during the day she finds my husband and tells him she wants her food brought out. Like a well-trained cat father he gets her food out and shuts her in the bathroom. She meows when she is done. He lets her out.”

And Blake Ballard’s dachshund has trained him to toss a tennis ball back up after the dog has dropped it down the stairs.

Nice while it lasted: You’ll have to look elsewhere for news about the Syfy channel’s annual New Year’s “Twilight Zone” marathon. I’m out. The episode versions Syfy has been using for the last couple of years have been trimmed. And for some of us raised on the original, full-length shows, the absence of certain scenes is simply too jarring to bear.

On the bright side, I’ll now be free on New Year’s Eve. Though, I suppose, my long-suffering spouse will believe that when she sees it. I know she has sometimes regarded me as the Ebenezer Turner of New Year’s Eve.

All because I have been known to cast a skeptical glance in the direction of woo-hooing holiday revelers.

“Are there no prisons? Are there no work houses?”

Today’s Slice question: Who holds the local record for most bottles of wine that had soured before being opened?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Ever see kids playing ball hockey in the street on your block?