The Slice Sure They’re Tough, But What About Their Cars?

The thing to remember is that the people with “My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student” bumper stickers are usually driving oil-leaking heaps that’ll never pass the emissions test.

It’s normal at this time of year: To experience the urge to punt.

How to teach kids to not leave things outside: Jo Ann Story, who lives outside Pullman, told us about a policy she enforced with her children when they were young. Toys left out in the yard went into what was known as “the Saturday box” and could not be accessed until the end of the week.

But what’s fair for one is fair for all. So one time when Story left her purse outside for a moment, her kids energetically noted this infraction. And so the purse spent a week in the Saturday box.

September is Library Card Sign-Up Month: It’s also known, in the city of Spokane anyway, as Open Every Week Month.

We’ve tried: But we can’t stop calling it the “ONB Building.”

And it comes up whenever we have guests from out of town because we never fail to point out that structure.

The first reader-written anagram made from the letters in “Pigs Out in the Park”: “Rake his gut no tipp.” - from a guy named Terry, who, unaccountably, didn’t want his last name attached to this exercise.

Send us a snapshot of your creative mailbox: And we promise not to tell lunkheads wielding baseball bats the location of your work of art.

Polarized opinions: Readers are sharply divided in their reaction to the downtown “security ambassadors.” Nobody contacting The Slice expressed a middle-of-the-road view. Nobody. People seem to think either that they’re great and long overdue or consider them an insult to the Constitution.

Hanukkah’s beautiful and not unimportant: But the big Jewish holidays are this month.

Warm-up question: When kids are faking illness because they don’t want to go to school, what’s the No. 1 most popular manufactured malady? Stomach ache? Malaria? Amnesia?

Today’s Slice question: What Inland Northwest school has the most unmistakable smell?

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

MEMO: The Slice appears Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098. It sounds strange when local bands respond to applause by saying “Thank you, Spokane.”