A Quick Call and It’s ‘Out, Damned Spot!’

Lady Macbeth could have used the Stain Hotline.

Alas for her, she didn’t have the 1986 Pacific Bell white pages. She might have saved herself a lot of grief by phoning the hot line (out there with the Hurricane Hotline, Bruce Springsteen Party Line and the Gutline--for the dyspeptic, of course.)

The Stain Hotline is a 911 for stain victims--an emergency phone number for the owners of shoe-polished carpeting and lipstuck upholstery. Operated out of an El Cajon carpet-cleaning firm, operators say the hot line doles out free advice 23 hours a day.

“It’s always tragic,” hot-line operator Vohn Woodfield recounted grimly. “Someone called, they had just moved into a new house. Their child had smeared lipstick all over the upholstered couch and carpet. We told the lady, ‘ Don’t touch anything! Let us come out! ‘ “

Their mission is to secure the scene of the stain before the horrified homeowner steps in to gum up the works. Misguided home remedies have simply compounded the damage of innumerable innocuous stains, “setting” them rather than removing them, operators say.

A few principles from stain-removal science: Water-based cleaning solutions work on water-based stains. Nail polish remover can be good for oil-based stains. Cold water, not hot, removes blood.

“Someone called this morning with a 7-Eleven Slurpee stain,” Woodfield recalled. “They told me what they did, and I immediately knew that they had set it. They had used dishwashing soap. . . . If she would have called us sooner, we would have said ‘Run down to the store, get some soda water . . .’ ”

An Antidote to Sects

Burned out on faith healings and speaking in tongues? Tired of peddling tulips for The Rev. Sun Myung Moon? Fundamentalists Anonymous is offering an alternative, and a move is afoot to open a chapter in America’s Finest City.

“We are a self-help group of, by and for people who have decided to leave their religious group or belief system and are still going through fear, anxiety, guilt, depression,” said Chip Stinnett, the Southern California organizer for the New York City-based group.

“Many people who come out of a tight, intense cult or fundamentalist organization--Christian or Buddhist or Hindu--also have with them a limiting mind-set that has prevented them from being all they can be,” Stinnett said. “We help these people make a successful transition to a life style of their choosing.”

Stinnett spoke this month to the Humanist Fellowship of San Diego, which describes itself as believing “that reason and experience are the best source for human values, as opposed to dogma and irrational belief systems.”

“There is a lot of uncertainty now, fear of liberals, fear of communism,” said Zoltan Simsay, fellowship president. “Fundamentalism feeds partially on that. I think it’s just hype, increasingly showing up on the opinion page and with the fundamentalist preachers on TV.”

Canine Matchmaking

Single, sensitive, honest, caring, communicative male Russian wolfhound seeks companionship with similarly inclined, growth-oriented female. Pisces preferred.

A date between two chows was arranged in a Vons parking lot. A Queensland heeler from Escondido got together with a heeler from Lakeside. Two cocker spaniels from Chula Vista are expecting. And a Kuvasz is awaiting the dog-dating service’s call.

“The puppies from that referral are due the end of August,” Ellie Bojok, proprietor of the newly formed Canine Mating Service, said of the chow connection. “I told my husband last night, ‘I feel like a grandmother!’ ”

Bojok, 40, started her dog match-making business this summer out of her husband’s tree service firm in El Cajon. She placed an ad in a county shopper, offering breeding referrals for dogs. Within three days, she said, she had received 50 calls.

For a registration fee, Bojok refers dog owners to other owners looking for mates for their dogs. In making her matches, she considers weight, height, age and color. Then there are the more elusive characteristics--personality, temperament and such.

“It’s amazing!” Bojok marveled last week. “I get people with the same kinds of dogs that, as far as I know, are a couple streets away from each other but have no way of finding each other.”

It’s lonely out there in singles-land.

Memorial Sculpture

Mary Sumerlin Hippen lost a husband and a daughter to cancer, then became an early San Diego County cancer-cell specialist. Dr. Michael J. Feeney was a prominent urologist who worked with cancer patients. In the end, cancer killed him.

So on Saturday, the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation dedicated a new sculpture to the memory of Hippen and Feeney, who died in 1974 and 1984, respectively. Built of granite, brass and water in an irregular configuration, it was designed to represent a cancer cell.

Remarking on the irony of memorializing a man’s life with a sculpture of the mechanism of his death, foundation co-founder Lillian Fishman said, “That’s true. But in a way, it’s rather an impetus for us to continue to delve into the mysteries of cancer and to try to vanquish it.”