As if things weren’t bad enough on...

As if things weren’t bad enough on a hot night in Parker Center Jail, something was blocking an air-conditioning duct. Officers didn’t realize it until too late, however. By that time, Bennett Anderson, 39, had escaped.

Police said Anderson, who was being held on several misdemeanor warrants, managed to pry the grill off the duct in his cell, pull himself up into the ceiling and crawl along through a shallow space.

Women working in the mail room screamed when the overhead suddenly crashed down among them. Anderson calmly lowered himself and strolled out the back door into the steamy Sunday night.

He was still among the missing Monday.

“That grill’s been there 30-some years and no one has been able to get if off before,” Lt. Dan Wallicer said. “Maybe he’s an air-conditioning man.”

Hands-down winner of the contest at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica for the shortest labor over the Labor Day weekend was Ellen Wolf of Malibu. Her daughter was born Sunday night after a mere 20 minutes.

Wolf, who has two other children, was taken to the hospital from a restaurant where she was having matzo ball soup.

The co-winners of the long-labor category “will want to talk to her,” predicted Paulette Weir of the hospital.

In a dead-heat tie for the weekend’s longest labor at St. John’s at 10 1/2 hours apiece were Culver City’s Donna Amy, whose daughter was born Sunday night, and Brentwood’s Eva Thayer, who gave birth to a girl Saturday.

All the babies were reported doing well Monday.

Pasadena’s Harley (Lou) Cobb didn’t sound lonely Monday. Cobb, a 55-year-old widower, who last week implanted on his front lawn a sign saying he was seeking an attractive lady for “friendship . . . maybe more,” has had so many telephone responses that “I stopped counting when it got over 200.”

What’s more, nearly 80 of the ladies had dropped by for coffee or tea and a chat.

“One in particular, I met yesterday,” Cobb confided. “I’m not kidding you. I never got so close to asking someone to go to Vegas. But, she’s really a high-class lady. This one I really like.”

What was her name?

“Her first name is Vileta.”

How was that spelled?

“Just a moment.” He turned away from the phone and could be heard repeating the question.

She told him.

“You can say the door’s still open,” Cobb said, “but this lady is really nice.”

There were problems enough with brush fires Monday, but county Fire Department paramedics had at least one non-incendiary call. A golfer at Malibu Golf Course reported swallowing a live bee.

“He said he swallowed something,” Capt. Jim Pruitt said. “He saw some bees in his cup. I think they were probably yellow jackets. He felt some sort of obstruction, but I don’t think it was serious.”

The unidentified golfer was taken to Malibu Emergency Room, where an attendant indicated the captain was probably right.

Also doing OK was another group of infants--the 22 American flamingo chicks sent to the Los Angeles Zoo by Florida’s Hialeah Park race track to help replenish the flock that was reduced last October when coyotes found a gate unlocked and killed 52 of them.

Mike Cunningham, associate curator of birds, said Monday that the newcomers are adjusting to the zoo’s specially prepared flamingo diet. Hialeah, he said, feeds its flamingos a mixture of dog food and game-bird crumbles.

The zoo had no trouble acquiring more Chilean flamingos after the assault, but the American variety--which turn a brighter pink--are harder to get.

The relay fast was begun on Aug. 21 by the Rev. Jesse Jackson to support farm workers’ leader Cesar Chavez, who did not touch food for 36 days to protest the use of certain pesticides on grapes. The Rev. Joseph Lowery (head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and actors Martin Sheen, Edward James Olmos and Emilio Estevez have since taken turns not eating for three days.

Another actor decided Monday to go in the opposite direction. Gerald C. (Brodie) Broderson, Republican candidate for Democratic Rep. Howard L. Berman’s 26th Congressional District seat, said he was going to eat nothing but grapes for a while.

“I’m going on a grape fast,” Broderson announced. “I’m going to prove that a person can go for a long time on grapes. I’m going to lose 20 pounds. The way grapes go through you, that ought not to take too long.”

Sheen’s credits are numerous. Estevez, his son, has appeared in “Young Guns,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Repo Man,” among others. Olmos is a police lieutenant on “Miami Vice” and starred in the film “Stand and Deliver.”

Broderson appears in a breakfast-food commercial on TV. He also belongs to the Guardian Angels and went out for football at Los Angeles Valley College six years ago, performing as a kicker.

He was 52 years old at the time and was not drafted by the pros.