An annual reason to thank lawyers
And, now, without further ado, some winners in California Lawyer magazine’s “Legal Follies 2006” issue:
* In the nearly-foolproof-scheme category, a man was arrested in L.A. for counterfeiting after he was found with a stash of $1-billion bills. One clue that the currency was bogus: There ain’t no such a thing as a billion-dollar bill.
* A former Humane Society executive in Oceanside “was charged with fraud for using the organization’s authority to buy 3,600 Vicodin tablets, which she said were for her dog.”
* When a Lodi city dump-truck driver plowed into a car, the car’s owner sued the city. Nothing unusual about that except that the dump-truck driver had plowed into his own car, meaning he was essentially suing himself.
* A naked L.A. man “who had covered himself in oats was cited for animal cruelty after sheriff’s deputies found him ... in Lompoc, letting horses lick him clean.”
Hope you weren’t eating oatmeal when you read that last item.
In case driving isn’t challenging enough for you: A sign in West L.A., complete with misspelling, should challenge your sanity (see photo).
Sounds like ... : Over the years, alert readers have spotted numerous colorful malapropisms in ads, including “Chester Drawers” (chest of drawers), “Floor Shine” shoes (Florsheim), “Wayne’s Coating” (wainscoting), “Rod Iron” (wrought iron) and “Chip and Dale” furniture (Chippendale).
G.H. Alva of L.A. just sent me one I hadn’t seen before: a misspelling of “Andalusian” in an ad that read as though the horse had taken too much Vicodin (see accompanying).
No resume required! John Gebler noticed a dressmaker willing to hire someone with little knowledge of the business (see accompanying).
What’s the hurry? The crime log of the Seal Beach Sun reported that an alarmed resident phoned police to say that two people in a vacant residence were “pretending to clean the windows.” Police checked and found out they were professional window-washers -- gentlemen who obviously work at their own pace.
miscelLAny: The 2007 edition of the “I Didn’t Know That Almanac” reveals: “The Los Angeles Lakers’ home games routinely sport any number of celebrities in near-court seats -- and some of them are diehard fans!” What? You say you knew that?
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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.