You can always find handy hints in...

You can always find handy hints in the the Pasadena Weekly’s annual reader survey of “Bests.”

Ralphs’ Parking Lot, for instance, received a vote last year as Best Place to Live.

The market’s asphalt was shunned by the newspaper’s readers this year, but a 7-Eleven parking lot was nominated in the just-released, “Best of 1991” poll for Best Al Fresco Dining.

Other categories that drew irreverent comments:

Best Dance Club: “In Pasadena?”

Best Hi-Chair Hangout: “UCLA” (contributed by a USC grad?)

Best Live Theater: “The Pasadena Playhouse during the earthquake.”

The survey failed, however, to credit the 5.8 Sierra Madre quake for prompting one of the funniest moments of the theatrical season.

It occurred in the playhouse during the Cole Porter musical, “You Never Know,” some hours after the quake. Actor Harry Groener stepped forward, looked into the audience, and shrugged helplessly after singing “At Long Last Love,” with the lyric:

“Is it an earthquake / Or merely a shock?”

Decline of civilization (cont.):

An L.A. elementary teacher, trying to pay the fee for a bilingual competency credential, was rebuffed by the district after writing out a check for $60.

“The clerk said, ‘We don’t take checks anymore,’ ” the teacher related. “I said, ‘I’ll just pay in cash then.’

“The clerk said, ‘We don’t take that, either--we only take postal money orders.’

“I said, ‘What do you mean?’

“She answered, “The person that used to handle the cash and checks got cut (from the payroll).’ ”

The teacher concluded: “I guess no one there now knows what cash is.”

“Where’s Marilyn Monroe?” people keep asking auto shop owner Kyo Song.

But all he knows is that the giant cutout of the late actress, which adorned his garage’s front gate in Silver Lake, has been missing in the asphalt jungle for more than three weeks.

“It’s sad,” Song said. “Some older people in the neighborhood used to stop and put flowers by her. When someone put graffiti on her once, people repainted it.”

Song, who was given the cutout by a customer, hopes to receive a replacement from a Hollywood studio friend--and soon.

“I liked it,” he explained, “because if a customer wanted to tell someone else about my shop he would say, ‘Go to the mechanic with Marilyn Monroe out front.’ ”

You might assume that KNX radio’s Food Hour wouldn’t have been the proper forum the other morning for a listener’s call about a skunk who entered a house through a doggie door and unleashed a spray attack. Au contraire. After all, one of the remedies is tomato juice. Lots of tomato juice.

miscelLAny:

The 1991 California Almanac reports that one survey found that 48% of L.A. residents use lap and shoulder seat belts, compared to 51% in San Diego and 55% in San Francisco.