All She Is Saying Is Give ‘Piece of Candy’ a Chance

And the mangled lyrics just keep on a-comin’.

“When I was about 4, my sister used to occasionally sing me to sleep,” said mondegreen contributor Dottie Patterson of Alta Loma.

“One night I asked for the song about the piece of candy. She had no idea which one I meant. But years later I heard the lyrics: ‘Sleep, my child, and PEACE ATTEND THEE, all through the night.’ Aha.”

Mused Patterson: “Is it possible someone else misheard it and that is the origin of the piece of candy left on one’s pillow by the finer roadside establishments?”

A schoolkid’s ballad: “I remember visiting my cousin and hearing her singing, ‘Bangin’ on the desks,’ instead of ‘Bennie and the Jets,’ ” said Mary Ann Lewis. “It made sense to a fifth-grader.”

For someone with a really hot car? Jami Jamison of Corona noticed a listing for a house with some unusual parking facilities (see accompanying).

Big words can be hazardous: Perhaps you read how a City Council staff report in Aliso Viejo cited the danger posed by dihydrogen monoxide in urging a ban on foam cups -- whereupon the council learned that the scary-sounding substance was water.

Turns out that several Internet sites have been warning about dihydrogen monoxide as a joke.

Anyway, I was reminded of how Hollywood resident Milton Kagen once posted a sign warning dog owners that his plants had been sprayed with dioxinleucomaine (see accompanying).

He was serious -- at least about wanting the mutts to stay out of his yard.

And the warning worked.

Dioxinleucomaine? He made up the word, Kagen said.

(Go ahead and Google it, you disbelievers.)

Such a deal: Ken McArthur of Oceanside spotted a record offer that read as if it had been placed by someone drinking something stronger than dihydrogen monoxide (see accompanying).

Trade in Fido? No, not really. Actually, the “PET” in the recycle ad (see accompanying), says Bill Houck of Orange, stands for a type of plastic: polyethylene terephthalate.

Which is a real term -- doggone right.

Maybe time is on his side: Decades ago, Mick Jagger quipped that if he were still performing “Satisfaction” when he was 40, he’d kill himself. Well, he’s 60 now and seems satisfied enough to keep on performing, who knows for how long.

In the new legal-beagle TV series, “Century City,” a character expresses doubts about the benefits of rejuvenation drugs, to which another responds: “Tell that to Mick Jagger. I saw him in Boston last year, and he looked great.”

Oh, yes, the series is set in the year 2030.

miscelLAny: Nancy Jabbra of Westchester wrote that her daughter’s car was recently “stolen, stripped, vandalized, abandoned and finally towed to an impound lot.” One item that the thieves left behind in the car: a law textbook.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.