The Slice: Kids learning to be Santa detectives

Everywhere you turn, faith and science seem to be colliding.

Here’s the latest case. Over the weekend, a friend’s 8-year-old daughter requested handwriting samples (printing and cursive) from both her parents.

It seems she plans to compare their signatures with that of a certain jolly old elf.

Boy, kids today. What’s next — DNA evidence?

“Chili? You shouldn’t have”: How often, when someone is temporarily laid up and friends are taking turns bringing meals, do the dinner providers wind up delivering the same dish several days in a row?

Same difference: Spokane Valley 10-year-old Emalie Wilson was reading aloud from a movie trivia quiz on the back of a cereal box. A multiple-choice question asked quiz-takers to identify the “top-grossing film of all time.”

One of the choices was “Titanic.” Emalie’s mom guessed that it would be the correct answer.

Emalie agreed. “It did have a lot of dead bodies,” she said.

Two-fer Tuesday: 1. Have you ever seen a “Pay for Parking” sign and momentarily thought it said “Pray for Parking”?

2. Does the law allow you to inter deceased relatives the way they would have wanted?

Misspeaking Department: The other day, when Don and Peggy Thomas were trying to decide what to have for dinner, he thought of an old favorite.

“Sea poop,” he suggested.

He meant pea soup. And just as he had suspected, it hit the spot.

Pet Names Department: When Terry Rayburn Mitchell’s late sister, Kellie, was 8, she had a furry little buddy named Morey Hamsterdam.

(If you don’t get that, ask a baby boomer or someone else familiar with “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”)

If you are planning to write a letter to the editor or phone a talk-radio show and need a refresher course: The Bill of Rights can be found on a plaque in the plaza in front of the federal courthouse.

Results of Friday’s quiz: More than 60 readers correctly identified “The Apartment” as the 1960 Academy Award-winning Jack Lemmon film with the boozy office Christmas party.

It wasn’t supposed to be a trick question. But almost that many readers answered “Days of Wine and Roses,” a Jack Lemmon picture from a couple years later that featured even more drinking.

Ann Ayers, Doreen Robbins and David Newton were selected in a drawing to receive reporter’s notebooks.

Warm-up question: Do you blame global warming for the fact it has been tough to maintain a backyard ice rink around here in recent years?

Today’s Slice question: Do you have any friends or relatives in the Northeast who, despite what the map says, refuse to accept that we are way farther north?