The Slice: Bird is the word

Last week, The Slice brought up the subject of not being able to hear what’s said to you at home because of some competing noise.

Here’s an example that, frankly, had not occurred to me.

“I haven’t got a prayer of a conversation with my husband at the dining room table,” wrote Judy Kotar. “It’s because of those four budgies (parakeets) in a cage nearby. They love company and want to join in whenever we talk. My husband wears hearing aids and the budgie squawks and screeches come in very well.”

Today’s stuffed toy adventure: When Bernadette Powers’ daughter was a newborn, she was given an “Amy” doll. It was cloth on the outside and full of stuffing. It was the child’s “can’t live without it”© doll, and by the time the little girl was 3, it began to fall apart.

Attempts to find a replacement were unsuccessful. Until a friend located one that had been a display doll in a store. Much larger than the other Amy, it was practically the same size as Bernadette’s daughter.

After the little girl went to sleep, they snuck the worn-out doll out of the child’s bed and replaced it with the supersized look-alike.

“In the morning, we were wakened with a blood-curdling scream from our daughter. The new doll scared the daylights out of her.”

They told the child the Doll Fairy had come and helped Amy grow up. That bit of fiction that would come back to bite them more than once whenever a toy broke.

A last note on dealing with family photos: “I moved my mom in with my family shortly after she turned 80 and seemed to be having memory problems,” wrote Meg McCoy. “She asked about what to do with her big box of pictures. When we started to go through the pictures it was obvious she had trouble remembering the oldest ones. So my advice to others in the same situation: Sooner rather than later. Make the time.”

I wonder how long it will be before the digital revolution makes the idea of saving physical photos a distant memory.

Warm-up questions: Have you personally ever been heckled? What’s your favorite fake barf story? What did you do when a child suggested one of your parenting decisions amounted to censorship? How many viewers caught a couple of episodes of the KSPS “Downton Abbey” New Year’s marathon and then decided to rewatch the entire series?

Today’s Slice question: What industry’s past includes the most interesting obsolete technology?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Raise your hand if you can recall a memorable moment of childhood swearing.