The Slice: Deafening but reportedly effective

Got a note from a Slice reader who said she discovered a way to quiet neighbors’ barking dogs.

She had tried all sorts of electronic devices and other tactics, including asking the neighbors to do something. Nothing worked. Then she found an answer.

“An air horn,” she said. “Yup, those horrible, obnoxiously loud horns. To this day I don’t know if I trained the dogs not to bark, or trained their owners to take responsibility to quiet them after a few seconds of barking. Life is good.”

So now I’m wondering. What other social problems could an air horn remedy?

Let’s move on.

Just wondering: How would you respond to someone who, upon meeting you, immediately suggested you need a makeover?

Slice answers: Here’s a little more food supply reality to help you start your week.

“My grandfather raised chickens for our entire extended family,” wrote Suzann Miller. “However, he did not wring the chickens’ necks. Instead he cut off their heads and let them run around the barnyard until they bled out. As a kid I thought this was hilarious to watch. As an adult, not so much.”

Vicki Cory Langridge shared this.

“My grandmother, Sylva Cory, was very good at stepping on their heads and then letting them run around the yard until they died. Their Irish setter Lady always chased them. My cousins and I tried it once. Was not a good outcome.”

In the matter of guys checking their zippers after leaving public restrooms (last Monday’s Slice): One Idaho reader said The Slice’s advice to instead do this right after washing your hands misses the mark because many men do not wash their hands.

I once heard a guy deny the need for restroom hand-washing, saying “I do not urinate on my hands.”

How would you respond to that?

And yet I still get paid the same: “With the constant daily changes of the name of the section your column appears in, we just refer to that part of the paper as ‘the Paul Turner section,’ ” wrote Sue Chapin.

Warm-up question: Looking ahead to Friday … Is having St. Patrick’s Day for a birthday kind of fun or is it a bit like having a green beer spilled all over your special day?

Today’s Slice question: I know this is a generalization. And your mileage may vary. But how far apart in age do two people have to be before they don’t get 50 percent of one another’s remember-when cultural references?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Uranus was discovered on this date in 1781.