When Dennis and Patty Thomas signed a...

When Dennis and Patty Thomas signed a contract to allow their 73-year-old home to become this year’s Whittier Design House, they didn’t envision the creature discomforts they’d face.

While the Whittier Historical Society continued the restoration of the earthquake-damaged house that the Thomases had begun, the family moved into a guest house in back.

However, city ordinances prohibit kitchens in guest rooms. So they’ve been forced to cook meals in a microwave or on a barbecue, while washing their dishes in the bathroom sink.

And when the historical society held a $40-a-person fund-raiser in the Design House on Sunday night, the Thomases were shocked to learn beforehand that they’d have to pay to get in.

“That was the last straw,” Dennis Thomas said.

The Thomases boycotted their own house.

She survived several hundred thousand miles in the skies as an airline hostess in the bumpy days prior to World War II.

But, of course, Marsha Toy didn’t know real danger until she encountered the automobile traffic of today’s Los Angeles.

The other day, she was struck by a hit-and-run driver after parking her car on Sunset Boulevard. She suffered several broken bones and, for the first time, missed the graduation ceremony of the Academy Pacific Business and Travel College, which she founded 41 years ago.

“I hated to be away from my ‘kids,’ ” she said from her hospital bed.

Toy’s school was one of the first for airline hostesses, but she’s since expanded the curriculum to include, in her words, “reservations, ticket sales, air freight and cargo, computers and many other courses.”

A stew’s duties are more complicated these days, but one qualification has been eliminated.

“Before World War II,” Toy said, “flying was so scary that the airlines required their hostesses to be registered nurses to allay the fears of the passengers.”

I see wrinkles in your future . . .

A “Wipe-Out-Graffiti” fund-raiser scheduled for Saturday at Bullock’s Northridge will feature, among its free services, psychic readings in the cosmetics department.

Possibly the town’s bravest parking lot attendant--the one who says he told heavyweight champ Mike Tyson he couldn’t park in a reserved spot--will meet with a representative of the Los Angeles city attorney’s office May 12.

Michael Devine, 33, will repeat the complaint that he filed with police, that Tyson struck him three times in the stomach with the back of his hand during the dispute in Hollywood earlier this month.

Tyson, or his legal corner man, Howard Weitzman, will tell the champ’s side to a hearing officer, who will recommend to city prosecutors afterward whether to file charges against Tyson.

Devine will be allowed to leave before the Tyson party arrives.

When jurors in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial received permission to bring in a cake this Thursday to celebrate the end of the second year of the case, defense attorney Dean Gits asked if he might do the same.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders smiled and said, “You may.” But Pounders, presiding over the longest and costliest criminal trial in the nation’s history, added that he wouldn’t join in any celebrating that day.

“I’m going to go in there,” the judge said, indicating his chamber, “and cry.”

It was bitter enough for hockey fans in Canada to stomach a playoff loss to a team from sunny Southern California, led by former Edmonton star Wayne Gretzky. But Forum fans at the final Kings-Edmonton game added another element to the game that could only be viewed as heresy to hockey purists. They batted around a beach ball in the stands.