The Slice: What does it mean to call someone that?

This email arrived Friday.

“Got my first laugh of the morning when opening up the paper to see the words ‘ding ass’ staring at me on the front page of the Today section,” wrote Max Sparr. “Seems the Green Nugget sticker was placed perfectly.”

On Max’s paper at least, that advertising sticker obscured parts of the stacked headline words, BOARDING PASS. Hence, ding ass.

I don’t know about you, but I am going to find a way to start saying that.

Home ice advantage: Here’s a reader challenge.

There’s really not enough folklore about Inland Northwest backyard ice rinks to suit me. So let’s make some up.

Please briefly describe what rituals or signs in nature ensure that there will be good conditions this winter for making and maintaining a backyard skating surface.

Slice fan mail: This arrived from a reader I know and have met and who has contributed multiple column items over the years.

“Just for the record, I thought your question about ‘laughing so hard you wet your pants’ was rather bizarre but I’m even more appalled that some women actually answered and wanted such a delicate and personal situation to be in print.”

Mud room envy: “With two often wet and sometimes muddy dogs, as well as myself being muddy and wet after working in the backyard, there are many times I wish for a mud room,” wrote Jimm Shaffer. “And so does my wife after all three of us come traipsing through our kitchen, the designated mud room. My son’s soon-to-be new home has a large mud room and my envy is apparent.”

OK, but doesn’t one of the 10 Commandments say something about coveting your child’s mud room? Or perhaps I’m confused. Maybe the mud room is addressed in the HGTV Bill of Rights.

This date in Slice history (1995): We want to know what little kid in the Inland Northwest has a name that sounds most like the name of a future U.N. secretary general.

(One name to emerge after that ran was Mathias Amadine Ronny Oliver, who was 5 months old at the time. He would be 22 now. Hope he is doing well.)

Today’s Slice question: If you had to drive the entire length of Interstate 90 with an Inland Northwest resident you have never met in person, who would you pick as that cross-country companion?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Anybody ever move to Spokane from a small town in a distant state and subsequently discover that someone else from that place also lives here?