The Slice: It works for hot chocolate

Upon opening a car door, Kathy Green and her 21-month-old granddaughter discovered that the vehicle’s interior had gotten hot. So young Stella had an idea. “Grandma,” she said. “Blow on it.”

•Misspeaking: Loon Lake’s Dave and Thora Stupin had a European-born relative who would say after a hard day at work, “Boy, it’s really a doggy dog world.”

Maybe he meant “Dog eat dog.”

Coeur d’Alene’s Jim Davis had a boss who said, “Well, that is water over the bridge.”

Pullman’s Matthew Tschirgi said his wife, Niki, is a fountain of fractured sayings. One of his favorites is her spin on a familiar expression that results in, “What am I, chop suey?”

Dana Rowan of Spokane has a sister who stumbled on her Nazi imagery when she said one difficult professor was like “a member of the gazpacho.”

She probably meant “Gestapo.”

And another reader told about a family member who once described an unlucky rodeo cowboy as having gotten “stampled.”

•For the record: Apparently those metal ice trays have not entirely outlived their usefulness. Carleen Hopkins said they are ideal for making certain gelatin desserts.

•Just wondering: Do you have a predetermined policy as to how you would respond if approached by a reporter/photographer doing a “man on the street” feature?

•Slice answers: Fairfield’s Kristin Olson saw the question, “If you’re not helping with the harvest, what good are you?”

She read it to her mother, Barb Olson.

Barb’s answer? “Someone has to hold down the air mattress on the lake.”

(In truth, she’s helping by preparing food for those working on the harvest.)

And a reader up in Newport noted that he helped by consuming food produced from the harvested crops.

•Dog days: Spokane Valley’s Barbara Latta was doing some laundry in the garage when she decided to run an errand.

Apparently her dachshund did not appreciate being left behind. The little dog buried Latta’s husband’s socks in the rose garden (where they were found two months later).

Maybe the dog was thinking, “What am I, chop suey?”

•Warm-up question (for residents of Spokane proper): One of my fans in North Idaho recently wrote to share his opinion that I am a “big city dweeb.”

The “dweeb” part can be debated. But “big city”?

So that made me wonder. Leaving aside the whole dweeb question and recognizing that everything is relative, how many residents of Spokane actually think of themselves as “big city” people?

•Today’s Slice question: Which era’s hot back-to-school clothes were most ridiculous?