The Slice: Who had it roughest?

It was not a competition, of course.

But there are Spokane-area residents who view the Nov. 17 windstorm’s aftermath in terms of who had it roughest. You know, a sort of ranking of power outage hardiness.

That’s probably inevitable. It’s natural to compare notes. It was, after all, not just unusual weather. It was astonishing.

There were deaths. There was eye-popping property damage.

But here’s the question. How long will local people good-naturedly rank themselves and others on a post-windstorm scale of endurance?

Will we hear a few more weeks of swapping stories? Or is this going to be a Spokane thing for years to come?

“How long were you without power back in 2015?”

“More than a week. But after two or three nights, we went to a hotel. You?”

“About the same. But we stuck it out.”

Now it’s worth noting that there are many good people who refrain from judging others in this regard or at least do so in a joshing manner. They realize, for instance, that it wasn’t a moral failing to have not lost power or to have been in the dark only briefly.

And it’s understandable if someone who endured a prolonged outage wants to wear that as a badge of courage.

But maybe the best way to do that is quietly.

The odd couple of reusable shopping bags: Vince Eberly picks up quite a few bags at education conferences and two he uses are a Positive Life Radio bag and a Modest Mouse bag. “Two ends of the spectrum, I think.”

Ups and downs of season tickets: “Biggest downside I experienced was sitting in front of a jerk who had once been a basketball referee and second-guessed or rated every call made or not made by the real refs,” wrote Blake Ballard. “And, sitting behind a guy game after game who showed his ‘plumber’s crack’ as he leaned over the rail in front of him.”

Do you hear what I hear?: Mike George reported that his wife, Susan, said the sound of the season in Spokane this year probably won’t be sleigh bells. It will, of course, be chain saws.

Today’s Slice question: Do you receive any Christmas cards from individuals you love but whose handwriting you simply cannot read?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. “I would make a grate reeder board editor,” wrote Susan Miller.