The Slice: Anything for an opportunity to spare a square

One reason the rich stay rich is that they inexplicably buy cheap toilet paper.

That’s my theory anyway.

Let’s move on.

Just wondering: What word best describes Spokane’s St. Patrick’s Day parade?

Awkward backtracking: I know I said I would give pets-on-the-bed stories a rest. And I will. I swear. After this, which comes with an “If you are eating…” alert.

The story involves Leanne Schillinger’s mastiff puppy, Sally.

It seems that if Leanne and her husband took an afternoon nap, Sally would get restless. “So we would leave all the doors open, so she could go in and out.”

The family lived near Green Bluff. There were lots of places a curious young canine could explore.

One time Sally came back with a show-and-tell offering.

Schillinger remembers, vividly. “I woke up to the smell of the rotting carcass of a fawn that she had placed on the bed with us. I can’t begin to tell you how disturbing it was.”

Jim Malm’s goal for the rest of winter: “Not to have to use the snow blower again.”

Following up: “The story mentioned in Sunday’s Slice about the days when garbage was collected by men accompanied by a driverless horse-drawn wagon triggered a memory,” wrote Robin Fontaine.

“We lived in Taipei, Taiwan, when I was in high school back in the mid-1970s. They had drivers in the garbage trucks — but there were no garbage collectors. It was self-service. The garbage trucks played music: ice cream truck music. When you heard the music, you ran out with your waste and piled it on the truck.

“The first time I heard the familiar strains of the ‘ice cream truck,’ I quickly ran outside and directly into culture shock upon finding garbage instead of ice cream. That was the real turkey in the straw.”

Warm-up question: Ever been complimented by someone who then immediately goes on to also praise a person you cannot stand?

Today’s Slice question: What do people in rural areas learn about their local topography as a result of searching for cell service?