Southland motorists have been caught in traffic...

Southland motorists have been caught in traffic jams caused by spills of brassieres on the Santa Ana Freeway, a dead whale on the San Diego, currency on the Hollywood and a boat on Culver Boulevard.

Now comes a nightly distraction.

Carol Dayton of Metro Traffic Control recently noticed that each night something seems to be hypnotizing east-bound Pomona Freeway drivers near Ontario and gumming up traffic all the way back to Pomona.

The cause? A decorated house lit up like, well, a Christmas tree.

Think of the legendary cruising spots in Southern California: Hollywood Boulevard, Whittier Boulevard in East L.A., Ventura Boulevard in the Valley and. . . .

First and 2nd streets in Long Beach?

Well, the residents of 1st and 2nd streets apparently think so, even though the affluent neighborhood seems to be crowded with cars only during the annual Fourth of July celebration nearby. Whatever, the locals persuaded the City Council to authorize signs that declare that “three times past same point within four hours is cruising.”

And two times past the same point within four hours is running an errand, which has not been outlawed even in this upscale part of Long Beach.

And four times past the same point in one hour is being lost.

Enforcement could require the creation of a new kind of cop: an officer standing on a corner watching all the cars go by. Don Jackson, are you filming this?

And, now, eau de skunk:

One of the newest items in UCLA’s student store is Rapel, a vial of synthetic skunk juice that can be attached to clothing and punctured in the event of a sexual assault. The idea, as you might imagine, is that the attacker will be turned off by the resulting smell.

Rapel, which costs $19.95, also comes with a vial of a substance that washes the skunk smell off the victim.

Rapel distributor Victoria Barackman told the Daily Bruin that UCLA is the first university in the nation to carry the product (another first for L.A.!).

Sales, however, have been slow--eight packages in the first week.

A bookstore worker blames peer pressure.

Our recent piece on George Tirebiter, USC’s famed canine mascot of the 1940s, mentioned that his origins were murky.

USC grad Marlene Iverson of Rancho Palos Verdes has more details.

“From 1936 to 1946 I lived in a house on the corner of 34th Street and Hoover, across from old Bovard Field,” she writes. “Tirebiter’s original name was Prince. His owner was a neighborhood kid called Bobo. Prince was a free spirit spending his days running up and down Hoover, chasing cars and biting tires.”

Iverson recollects that Prince’s master was killed in an auto accident around 1945.

And so, the USC campus became the home for the animal that USC grad Douglas Hays fondly recalls as that “mangy, deranged, psychotic mutt.”

Thus completes the first chapter of “Tirebiter: The Early Years.”

In the heart of darkness:

Mindy Berman, the after-hours spokesperson for the Department of Water and Power, briefed a Times reporter on Tuesday night’s power outage that affected the Westside Pavilion as well as the apartments of about 500 Westside tenants.

“That includes me,” she added.

The conscientious Berman kept working in her house, with the aid of a flashlight.

Robert White, Norwalk’s 6-foot-7, 290-pound city councilman, says, “I’m kinda country.” So he had an earthy response Wednesday regarding a proposal for the city to spend $60,000 on a public relations firm to spruce up Norwalk’s image:

“I think we should be doing things in-house instead of out-house.”