The devil in disguise--in Christmas wrapping paper?Debbie...
The devil in disguise--in Christmas wrapping paper?
Debbie Wagner of Norwalk says she spotted old Lucifer on a sheet of gift wrap that her daughter purchased at a Hallmark store in Cerritos. She also found a goat’s head, bats and other satanic symbols.
“I knew exactly what it was and got it out of my house as soon as I could return it,” she said.
Store manager Gloria Perez gave Wagner a package of a different gift wrap and pulled the ones with the alleged satanic designs--a black and green marbleized pattern with gold stars--from the shelves.
Perez said she saw nothing odd in the paper until Wagner complained, but admitted, “It’s kind of spooky in a way if you really study it.”
Hallmark marketing coordinator Sherry Timbrook, however, maintained, “It’s like looking at clouds or like ink blots: You see whatever you see.” She said this was the first such complaint she had received and added that she herself had wrapped four gifts with the same paper last year.
So, we’re leaving it up to you, the readers, to tell us what you see in the design. (Feel free to turn the section of wrap that we’ve reproduced upside down.) Frankly, we’re not sure if it is devil-wrap. But we did find Elvis.
In the Is-This-Progress? category, Larry Kaplan reports that he came upon a vending machine in the Downtown YMCA that dispenses whole Sunkist oranges--that is, peeled oranges that come in a plastic container.
“Finally, fruit for the busy person on the run,” he writes. “You don’t even have to take the time to peel it anymore. So, some genius came up with a packaging idea that takes plastic, ink and a manufacturing plant to replace a natural covering that has done pretty well for ages.”
List of the Day:
You may recall our mention of the ghastly finding, in a creek bed, of a giant Ronald McDonald doll by a California Environmental Project crew. The nonprofit volunteer group, which has since returned Ronald to his home at a McDonald’s near Chatsworth, comes upon all manner of strange items in its cleanups of canyons.
Executive director Scott Mathes ticks off a few other findings:
1--A 4-foot-high J&B; Scotch bottle on a pedestal.
2--Some boxes of 10- and 20-year pins from Hughes Aircraft.
3--Numerous blown-up safes.
4--A Pepsi machine.
5--The 1955 wedding album of a Northridge man.
6--A hot tub that had been sawed in half.
7--One telephone booth (with telephone).
8--A doll that had had one eye replaced, “like with an evil eye.”
That devil again?
Stupid Criminal Tricks:
The latest issue of Star News, an L.A. County Sheriff’s Department publication, recounts a recent trial in which a robbery victim was asked, “Are the men who robbed you present in the courtroom today?”
Before the victim could respond, both defendants raised their hands.
miscelLAny:
The East L.A. Interchange--where the 10, 5, 60 and 101 freeways converge--is known as Malfunction Junction to some traffic reporters. But Caltrans workers have their own nickname: The Mixmaster.
