The Slice: Actors vs. “real people”

Moscow’s Peter Haggart keeps seeing those truck commercials featuring the message “Not actors, real people.”

It makes him wonder. “Do you suppose that actors are upset about not being real people?”

Hard to say. But it brings to mind a scene from “The Producers.”

Leo Bloom: “Actors are not animals! They’re human beings!”

Max Bialystock: “They are? Have you ever eaten with one?”

Guilt by association: Jana Augenstine’s older brothers established a family reputation at her school. So much so that, well, I’ll let her tell it.

“I once had a teacher ask me on the first day of school, ‘You’re the last one, aren’t you?’ ”

Barbara Lee encountered a similar attitude on her first day as a senior at Shadle Park High School. Her math teacher was calling the roll. “When he came to my name he stopped and said ‘Do you have a brother named Farrell?’

Barbara said yes, she did.

The teacher then said, “I will tell you the same thing that I told him. There are two ways you can leave my class. You can walk out the door under your own power or I will personally throw you out the window. You’d better behave in here.”

All Barbara could think was that would have been something to see, the 5-foot-6-inch teacher wrestling with her athletic, 6-foot-3-inch brother.

Slice answer: “The woman whose cubicle was across from mine used to fall asleep after lunch,” wrote Mary Laflamme. “I called her on the phone and when she answered said, ‘This is your wake-up call.’ We both had a good laugh and got back to work.”

A sad way to finally connect: “For decades people have told me that I have a twin living in Spokane,” wrote Jeff Nadeau. “I have always been curious about this doppelganger, whom I never had the pleasure of meeting. That is until (Wednesday) when, much to my shock, I saw my face looking out from an obituary in the Spokesman.

“Richard Swan was the spitting image of me, or rather, I him, since he died at 75 years old, 10 years older than me. He and I shared the same features, facial hair, and hair style. It was like looking in the mirror. I thought it might be fun to go to his funeral, but also disturbing and in terribly bad taste. So a toast to Richard Swan, an uncommonly handsome man, who died too young.”

Today’s Slice question: What if Grand Coulee Dam had never been built?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Judi Durfee’s excuse for not cleaning out the garage: “I might find bodies.”