Love, L.A. style: A South Bay woman...

Love, L.A. style: A South Bay woman met a visitor from the East in a bar and, against her better judgment, wrote down her phone number on a cocktail napkin. He phoned her and they went out a couple of times. That seemed to be the end of it.

Then one day she received a phone call from a man she didn’t know. He thanked her for leaving the phone number but said he needed more information.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

He explained that he was the owner of the car that she had hit in a parking lot. And he thanked her for putting her phone number on the cocktail napkin and leaving it on his windshield.

Either way, it’s fattening: The debating teams of USC and UCLA will mix it up at 10 a.m. today in the Great University Avocado Debate Rivalry to decide whether the, uh, edible thing is a fruit or vegetable. Because the debate’s at the USC Law School, the Trojans, who are backing the vegetable side, have been established as four-pit favorites.

The decline of civilization (cont.): Art Raz of Cerritos sent us a photo of a water fountain in a Pasadena post office. The sign above it said: “Absolutely no spitting in the sinks.”

No. 1 on the laugh meter: Some people might turn to SNL (TV’s “Saturday Night Live”) for comedy, but we prefer the DWP (L.A.’s Department of Water and Power).

It’s not just that the agency has been ordered to pay $333,407 in penalties because it was $3.40 short on the postage for its property tax bill. Consider these other wacky moments of recent years:

* The agency makes a $25,000 contract with a crisis management center, which has previously examined the Bhopal and Chernobyl catastrophes, to study why the DWP failed to get a rate hike. The contract is canceled after it’s made public.

* A $1,222 expense account entry--including $30 per person for drinks--for a DWP “business dinner” in Denver is rejected by Controller Rick Tuttle.

* Norman Nichols, then DWP head, takes a $330 city helicopter ride to and from Burbank Airport so that he can take a $2,794 chartered jet to Sacramento for a meeting.

* Asked why its downtown headquarters are lit up every night during one energy crisis, the agency says it’s celebrating the 25th anniversary of the building’s construction.

* After a $500,000 advertising campaign by the agency to persuade people to drink from their taps, the DWP admits that seven of its offices furnish bottled water to employees.

Say ahhhh: Edouard de Merlier of Long Beach, who photographed the accompanying marquee, observes: “Given the price for medical care, every week is ‘Happy Physicians Week.’ ”

miscelLAny:

Kitty Hawk, Wiley Post, Will Rogers, Glider, Airlane, Boeing, Flight and Compass are the names of streets within a few blocks of Los Angeles International Airport.