Bureaucracies work in strange ways. For instance,...

Bureaucracies work in strange ways. For instance, city officials recently admitted they’ve been unable to collect $226 million in parking tickets.

But, taxpayers, take heart.

When the city clerk reimbursed City Councilman Joel Wachs for the $15 he spent on a bottle of malathion the other day, the General Services Department jumped right on that one and got the money back.

Wachs had bought a quart of the stuff so that he could read the warning on the label during a council hearing on the effects of malathion.

Why did General Services refuse to reimburse him? Said Wachs aide Greg Nelson: “The city purchasing agent said it was because it was a ‘hazardous material.’ ”

Added Nelson: “The (council) hearing took seven hours and we had every type of specialist you can imagine testify. I guess I could have just called the purchasing agent and we’d have been out of there in 10 minutes.”

Sights o’ L.A.:

Cynthia Bos of Pacific Palisades spotted a character clad in a white Mickey Mouse tuxedo and tennis shoes scratching numbers off lottery tickets outside a market--the straggly hair identifying him unmistakably as singer Tiny Tim. . . . Lisa Bialac-Jehle noticed the latest in jogging gear along Rustic Road in Santa Monica, where a runner was carrying a cellular phone in one hand. (What? No joggers’ cellular phone backpack?). . . .

And then there was the elegant white Mercedes cruising regally through Woodland Hills while displaying a cellular phone antenna, a TV antenna and--as its radio antenna--a coat hanger. . . .

Virginia (Ginger) Heintz, a senior clerk typist, retired from the city Bureau of Engineering the other day after 48 years of service.

That wasn’t quite a record--former Assistant City Clerk Henry P. Rio toiled 56 years.

But what does appear to be a record is that, Heintz, a Belmont High graduate, never once called in sick.

“The city of Los Angeles is such a wonderful place,” she said before being honored by the City Council. “I really enjoyed coming to work.”

As for her spotless attendance record, she explained: “You just have to think right. You have to think you can’t be sick.”

And, now joining 111 st Street and Bevery Glen Boulevard in our City Street Signs Hall of Shame, let’s have a nice hand for:

Castle Hegihts Avenue.

Pennee Robin, who espied the boo-boo where the street intersects Harlow Avenue in West L.A., commented that perhaps the city’s sign makers “need (the computer safeguard) spell check on their sign printer.”

While we’re at it: A shop on Vermont Avenue proclaims that it is both a barber shop and a “Beauty Saloon.”

No word on whether there’s a happy hour.

miscelLAny:

The hottest days ever recorded at the Civic Center were Sept. 1, 1955, and Sept. 4, 1988, when the mercury climbed to 110.