The Slice: What’s your favorite flavor?

Happy Pi Day.

No, not pie. Pi. You know, 3.14159265359. Et cetera.

It’s a number you can use to help calculate the value of a liberal arts degree.

Let’s move on.

Assumptions about those who move here from California: “Back in 1967, at the age of 15, I moved here with my family from California to Colville,” wrote Doug Boeff, now a resident of Post Falls.

“I started at Colville High School as a sophomore. When it became known that I was from California, several times I was asked if I were a surfer. Having been born and raised in the High Sierras near Donner Pass, the closest I had ever been to the beach was a trip to a Giants game in San Francisco. Nevertheless, I always said ‘Yes!’, correctly assuming that I’d never have to prove it.”

And Coeur d’Alene’s Sally Kuchik took issue with the impression that those who moved here from California are “self-absorbed crazy drivers.”

Some clarification is in order, she suggested.

“They tend to drive fast, but not necessarily crazy.”

Food drives: “I’m always willing to travel for good food,” wrote Linda Fletcher Hall, who lives in the Colville area. “More than once I’ve made the trip to Hudson’s for a burger fix – about 200 miles round trip.

“Sure, I throw in a Costco stop or a visit to my mom in Spokane Valley as justification. But my real purpose is that burger and everyone knows it.”

When people incorrectly assume he agrees with them: Guy Hawks sometimes says, “If I agree with you then we will both be wrong.”

He finds that usually ends the discussion.

Who goes there: “I loved your query about special secret passcodes to be passed between conspirators, to prove they were from Spokane and knew intimately the sordid Spokane backstory,” wrote downtown architect Ann Martin. “You may have had to have lived here for the 60 years I have to truly understand these.”

Here are Ann’s password-exchange offerings.

“Tool” … “Riverside.”

“South Hill” … “Cake Eaters.”

Ann gets a coveted reporter’s notebook.

(My plan had been to have a mystery judge make that selection. But some of the entries were phoned in, and I ran into a technical snag in trying to forward those messages. I’ll figure it out before the next contest.)

Today’s Slice question: Who in the Inland Northwest has taught the most people to play chess?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Picking nothing but upsets is certainly one way to go.