The Slice: Fall pitfalls must be avoided at all costs

Here are four reasons why you shouldn’t start raking yet. 1. There are still a lot of leaves on the trees. 2. Jessica Biel might call while you are outside. 3. You could tear a rotator cuff. 4. If you wait until after everyone else has raked up their leaves, a mighty wind could come along and take care of your yard for you.

“Slice answer No. 1: Years ago, when Donna Lee’s daughter, Andrea, was about 3, the little girl got hooked on the TV series “Wonder Woman.”

And a set of Wonder Woman underwear — worn as outerwear — soon became her uniform.

“Once she put them on, they would not come off,” said Lee. “She wore them to the store, to her granddad’s house, you name it.”

Lately her mom has been thinking of trying to find an adult set of Wonder Woman underwear and sending them off to Andrea at medical school in Oregon.

“Slice answer No. 2: South Hill resident Sarah Wasicek said her husband, Frank, dreads the arrival of cold weather more than anyone else around here. “Trust me,” she wrote. “It is no one else.”

“Slice answer No. 3: In the matter of how readers’ professions have been portrayed in the movies, Kristin Williams said it’s not a pretty picture for hers.

Williams is a librarian.

“Librarians are often portrayed as quiet spinsters who wear their hair in buns — think Donna Reed in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ ” she wrote. “This kind of librarian is almost always frumpy and often rude.”

She cited the humorless, shushing librarian in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Of course, there are exceptions. Williams mentioned Katharine Hepburn in “Desk Set.”

But mostly, hackneyed stereotypes rule. “Librarians in movies are almost always women and if they are men, they are often effeminate.”

Of course, it’s not just the movies that fail to recognize individuality among librarians, Williams noted. “The most recent application form for the TV show ‘Extreme Makeover’ says that they are interested in making over a ‘cancer survivor or librarian.’ “

Newspaper delivery veteran Roberta Steggall also has a beef with Hollywood. “The only way I have seen my job as a paper carrier portrayed is by teenage or preteen maniacs on bicycles,” she wrote.

“Happy ending: Emma Davidson’s young granddaughter, Kylie, collects bugs and keeps them in jars with grass.

Well, one day Davidson told the little girl that a Lady Bug in captivity was no longer among the living. She asked Kylie if she’d like her to dispose of it.

“No, Grandma,” said Kylie. “I will grave it.”

(It turned out graving it wasn’t necessary, though. The insect in question was alive, after all.)

“Today’s Slice question: How many Inland Northwest residents own (and use as their primary vehicle) a car or truck that is older than they are?