Anyone With Hungry Kids Knows This Was a True Emergency

The “Readings” section of the July Harper’s magazine contains the text of an unusual emergency phone call, which begins this way:

Dispatcher: Sheriff’s Department. How can I help you?

Caller: Yeah, I’m over here at the Burger King drive-thru in Laguna Niguel, I think.

Dispatcher: Uh huh.

Caller: I asked them four different times to make me a Western Barbecue Burger. OK, they keep giving me a hamburger with lettuce, tomato and cheese, onions, and I said I’m not leaving. I want a Western Burger because I just got my kids from tae kwon do, they’re hungry, I’m on my way home and I live in San Clemente.

Dispatcher: Ma’am, we’re not going to go down there and enforce your Western Bacon Cheeseburger.

The caller gave up after staying on the emergency line for 2 1/2 minutes.

Snopes.com, investigator of urban folk tales, verified via the department that the call did come in -- it’s posted at www.snopes.com/crime/cops/burger.asp -- but is uncertain whether the burger lover was serious.

Chew on this: Bob Steinbrinck of Riverside found a restaurant with food to die for (see accompanying).

Resolved -- space invasion movies have run out of plot twists: Karen Pearson of Manhattan Beach saw an announcement about a debate between representatives of Earth and Mars (see accompanying).

Word imperfect: Mike and Dale of Azusa noticed a disastrous instance in which spell check didn’t prove to be such a “convenience” (see accompanying).

Hop to it! Barbara Hedden of Laguna Beach saw an offer “that could come in handy in case you have two feet” (see accompanying).

You can’t do that: Some of the more offbeat laws passed over the years by local officials, as listed in the Long Beach Reporter, a legal newspaper:

* Arcadia: Peacocks have the right of way to cross any street, including driveways.

* Chico: Detonating a nuclear device within the city limits will result in a $500 fine.

* Long Beach: It is illegal to curse on a miniature golf course.

* Los Angeles: Toads may not be licked.

* Palm Springs: It is illegal to walk a camel down Palm Canyon Drive between the hours of 4 and 6 p.m.

* Redlands: A motor vehicle may not be driven on a city street unless a man with a lantern is walking ahead of it.

miscelLAny: Carl’s Jr., which began in L.A. more than half a century ago, plans to open 50 restaurants in Russia over the next eight years. Dennis Drissi of Oxnard wonders if the expansion would have been a better idea before the fall of communism. Back then, he noted, the signs could have been spelled “Karl’s.”

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.