The Slice: PT phone home

I’m sure I have scoffed at people who spend all day looking at their phones.

When I took a break from looking at my phone, that is.

Anyway, that’s going to be my Halloween costume this weekend: “Man looking at his smartphone.”

But I’m not sure anyone will realize I am engaging in performance art.

Let’s move on.

Possible feature stories for the near future: Vote for your favorite.

“Cooking with marijuana as an ingredient.”

“Global warming, gun control and other topics for Thanksgiving.”

“Spokane men: Don’t care.”

“Grade school children who have a better vocabulary than you.”

“Worrying about stuff: A Spokane lifestyle.”

“Convincing strangers that brushing against their private area was an accident.”

My neighbor’s cat: She stays in almost all the time, now that she is well into her phase of being a senior feline. I miss seeing her, of course. But I am happy she is safe and warm.

She reportedly sleeps a lot. I wonder what she sees in her dreams.

Just wondering: How many subscribers never fail to make disparaging remarks about the lean-and-mean Monday paper’s lack of heft even though it typically contains some good stuff and doesn’t ask for a major commitment of time?

OK, complaining is a subscriber’s absolute right. You pay your money, you get to grouse. But the Monday paper has feelings, too, you know.

In country: Here’s one more spider story. For now.

When Mack Stanhope was serving in Vietnam, a large gray spider set up housekeeping in the mosquito net over his bunk. Mack didn’t bother the arachnid because it devoured a lot of flying bloodsuckers stuck in its web. Mack named the spider Winston.

Well, one night Mack came back after robustly enjoying a few adult beverages and inadvertently destroyed part of Winston’s web.

The next morning Mack woke up with painful swelling on his thumb, which he assumed was from a spider bite.

Mack sought to make amends. He caught several juicy Vietnam flies and placed them in Winston’s web. Call it a peace offering.

“He apparently forgave me and we lived in harmony until I returned to the U.S. I have since made it a cardinal rule not to kill any spiders.”

Warm-up question: Ever find a weather balloon?

Today’s Slice question: What makes you want to move way out, as far away from other people as possible?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. The comic strip Doonesbury was launched in 28 newspapers on this date in 1970.