A tradition went haywire Friday when two steers running through the streets of Puyallup (PYEW-ahl-up), Wash., as part of the ceremonial cattle drive that opens the Puyallup Fair each year, took an unplanned detour into a local convenience store.

The animals were able to enter the store because it had an automatic sliding door, Police Department spokesperson Dave McDonald told the News-Tribune newspaper of nearby Tacoma, Wash. Fortunately, despite what we've been led to believe about bulls and china shops, the steers didn't cause any major damage and no one (human or bovine) was injured in the incident.

Cowboys on horseback rode to the store and were able, eventually, to drive the cattle out. Presumably, the incident did not affect fairgoers' ability to "do the Puyallup."

How about cattle in a convenience store? This made me laugh, when I saw it on the news:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/...deo-parade.html

This kind of thing pops up every so often and we laugh and forget about it. The thing about this incident that really gets me, though, is that the cowboys actually followed the steer in on horseback. I bet they were more of a danger to the store than the cattle.