The Slice: When you are impressed with yourself

Everybody loves it when the media report someone playing the “Do you know who I am?” card during a run-in with the police.

Love it, as in “I hope that person goes to prison for a long time.”

You might have read about such an incident involving local athletes earlier this week.

So here’s my question. How impressed would local law enforcement be if you tried playing that “Don’t you realize I’m a big deal?” game?

The Canadian mounted: As part of The Slice’s month-long salute to “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” on its 30th anniversary, here are a couple of reader allusions to that movie.

My friend Dan Hansen shared a story from years ago. It involves his son.

“When Kyle was fairly young, our family went for a short hike at Fishtrap Lake. Back at the parking lot, we started finding ticks on each other. Kyle had more than anyone, and was starting to panic. So, we stripped him down to his briefs for a thorough check. At one point, he turned his back to me and said frantically, ‘Check between the pillows!’ ”

And high school teacher Delilah Dixon enjoys riffing on the “You’re going the wrong way!” scene, in hopes of encouraging her young charges to check out the John Candy/Steve Martin Thanksgiving staple.

Winter tip for newcomers: If you select a snowblower that’s not self-propelled, you might as well just shovel, said one veteran of many Spokane winters.

Slice answers: Answers to the question about what happens when you let people borrow books ranged from anger about them never being returned to passive aggressive lectures on the wrongness of regarding books as property.

Then there was this, from Patty Gaul. “I decided to turn my angst regarding unreturned books around. I put up a Little Free Library and found great joy in seeing people anonymously give and take right in my front yard.”

In the matter of who you would choose to accompany you on a cross-country car trip, Lonnie Scott said he’d pick the couple in the Northern Quest commercials. He knows they are acting, but they seem fun.

Warm-up question: What’s the most unusual sight you’ve seen when looking out at your bird feeder?

Today’s Slice question for military veterans: Ever encounter people who are under the impression Veterans Day and Memorial Day are the essentially the same?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Wade Griffith and Sue Plummer were among those who felt it was a travesty that I overlooked “Louie Louie” in a brief allusion to Washington’s state song Wednesday.