Sideswipe: September 13: First time loading the dishwasher

Parenting the innocent

I was at the park with my kids and I told my 2-year-old how impressed I am with how fast her climbing is getting. I tell her she's almost as fast as her older sister. My 6-year-old is unimpressed that I'm not complimenting her so she jumps down from the climbing frame to talk to me. "Dad, you have got to stop saying racist things all the time," she says. Say what? "What do you mean honey, what have I said that was racist?" "You always turn everything into a race and I don't like it," she replies.

Unintentionally ingested

"I am a vet. I have had so many times where the client swears up and down that the dog did not eat anything, could not have eaten anything, and nothing is missing. Then when we remove a whole towel, the owner is like "oh, the kitchen towel? Yes, I did see him chewing on that yesterday, and we haven't been able to find it since."

"Our old dog waddled into the living room looking bloated and woebegone. I said to her, 'Oh, poor Hali, you look like you don't feel well!' As if on cue, she promptly vomited a large quantity of dark brown liquid. A bit of investigation revealed she'd eaten an entire tray of burned brownies from out of the trash, washed down with all the water from her bowl. (She was fine after, but getting that out of the beige carpet wasn't fun.)"

All from Springfield

Thursday's episode of The Chase.

Tradition is sometime deeply weird

The caretaker of the royal beehives containing approximately 1 million charges performed an unusual ritual upon Queen Elizabeth's death - he informed each hive of the news. The weird nugget comes via the Daily Mail, which interviewed royal beekeeper John Chapple. "I drape the hives with black ribbon with a bow," he said. "You knock on each hive and say, 'The mistress is dead, but don't you go. Your master will be a good master to you.'" Chapple did this for the hives - bedecked in black bows - at Clarence House as well as Buckingham Palace. As it turns out, the ritual is rooted in tradition, explains Vanity Fair. Centuries ago, people came to believe that if bees were not told about their master's death, they would stop making honey.