Sideswipe: April 17: Got a spare $8000? Here's an investment

Got a spare $8000? Here's an investment. Spotted in Thames.

Parents, when was the moment you realised you had raised a monster?

1. My 6-year-old daughter told me to "shave that thing off" — my goatee. A couple of days later I did, and asked her, "do you like it?" She makes a bit of a face and says "no I didn't know your chin was so small".

2. When my son was 13 or 14, we were chatting about how as kids got older, and parents become elderly, often the kids became a caregiver to some degree to the parent. My son offhandedly remarked that he'd be looking for the cheapest nursing home where he could park me.

3. "I was stranded in the bathroom with no toilet paper and called for my son. He demanded 10 bucks. I reminded him he's not so old he can't be left on a doorstep. He gave me two squares ..."

(Via Reddit.com)

Tiny love stories — We Won't Finish This Story Together

The 19-year age difference appalled my mother: "It will kill your father!" Yet my father approved. "We don't always understand what Gayle does," he said, smiling, at my wedding. "But it always works out." In time, nobody noticed the age gap — we certainly didn't. But 34 years on, it's gaping again. We know we won't finish this story together. I creak a little; he creaks more. Yet we're still riding the same wave of passion that we always have: argument, travel, art, a shared table. We will crash with happiness; we refuse to end with a whimper. (by Gayle Austen, New York Times)

AT's most desperate attempt

"AT buses regularly parking up over our driveway; perhaps their most desperate attempt to get us out of our cars!"

Mondegreen confessions

1. Brian Clark of New Plymouth writes: "I'm now 90 but in my very early days in London there was an ancient subway railway station under the Thames which was dark, dank and frightening. Whenever I said the Lord's Prayer in church I always thought it was 'lead us not into Thames Station'."

2. "My niece always sang the Paul Young song as 'Every time you go away you take a piece of meat with you' instead of take a piece of me!" writes Debbie Pope. "She is 40 now and I still sing meat when it occasionally comes on the radio."

Video Pick

A group of logs is about to freeze to death in a cold, icy desert. When they realise that the only fuel for a warming fire is their own body, things start heating up.

Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz