The Slice: For Debbie, this day must be a downer

I am declaring today to be “Blame a Debbie Day” in the Inland Northwest.

But I freely admit that I borrowed the idea.

“When my daughter, Nancy, was a toddler, she excused her misdeeds with the phrase ‘Debbie did it,’” wrote Larry Zimmerman. “Debbie was Nancy’s reflection in the hall mirror.”

My friend Montana John had his own story of crime and punishment.

“I can relate to the guy who threw the rock at a girl who ducked causing the window to break (Thursday’s Slice),” he wrote. “When I was about 8, a neighbor girl was taunting me. When I picked up a rock to throw at her, she wheeled around to flee and ran smack into the tailfin of a parked 1960 Plymouth station wagon. She took a few stitches in the forehead and I took the rap.

“I still think I would have been found innocent by a jury of my peers.”

Even now, he can imagine defense counsel pleading his case.

“In the final analysis the defendant didn’t park the vehicle there, nor did he own or control the offending Plymouth. Besides, after all that taunting the defendant reasonably believed she would stand and fight. In fact, maybe her own father was to blame for parking the car in the driveway.”

Of course, if the little girl had been named Debbie, Montana John’s defense attorney could have said “And in conclusion, Debbie did it.”

What she has learned from reading obituaries: “That most folks don’t actually ‘die,’ ” wrote Joyce Atkinson. “They slip into eternity, take eternal rest, move to the other side, leave this earthly plane, fly into the arms of angels, cross the mystic stream, expire, make their transition, finish the race, take a journey, pass through the veil, graduate from this life, et cetera, et cetera.”

Re: subscription labels and donating magazines to a waiting room: “I heard about a person who made a practice of stealing magazine subscriptions by sending fictitious address changes to magazine publishers,” wrote Chet Nelson.

For a related story, see today’s Slice Blog.

Today’s Slice question: What’s your nickname for the fun-sized Monday edition of The Spokesman-Review?