A real cut-up: We interrupt this column...
A real cut-up: We interrupt this column for an announcement for residents of Glendale. Take note of this item from the city’s police log:
“A woman reported that a man called at 2 p.m. . . . and persuaded her over the phone to cut up her shoes, valued at $70, because, as a representative of a shoe store, he would give her a new pair in 30 minutes and a certificate for 40 more free pairs. Police said they have had other similar reports.”
What’s gotten into Glendale anyway? While adults were cutting up their shoes, children at Glendale’s John Muir Elementary School were swapping tales about an alleged haunted house on a nearby street.
The students told the Glendale News-Press that the rumors include (1) a man with no head roams the grounds, (2) the house’s stairs shake and creak, and (3) the property has an outdoor pond stocked with killer fish. One student even claimed that when he looks at the house, his ears turn red and start burning (the same reaction we get when we look at producer Aaron Spelling’s mansion in Holmby Hills).
Anyway, a school official, who had received calls from worried parents, said the haunted house business appeared to be a case of older students trying to scare the younger ones.
The owner of the house, by the way, said it is not haunted. (Of course,
isn’t that just what you’d expect her to say?)
The kids at Muir wouldn’t make this error: Lee Gruenfeld found a Self-Dueling Sign near the Santa Monica Airport. We suggest that Santa Monica’s traffic control people take off their shoes and count the number of hours between 9 a.m.and 6 p.m.
Wait ‘til Mike Wallace finds out: Remember when the TV show “60 Minutes” called Venice Beach “the Skating Capital of the World”? Yes, it brought tears to our eyes too. But now a survey commissioned by the county found that 65% of the visitors never skate. And just 10% strap on the wheels or blades more than four times a year.
False advertising: Another strange post-riot sight--a burned-out safe in a Koreatown mini-mart bore a sign that pointed to a nearby lock store and said: “This was a safe. . . . Buy tools from us. Cutting torch $3. . . . Safe and cable cutters $14.”
The owner of the lock store said the sign was somebody’s prank.
Where’s spell-check when you kneed it? In search of a personal computer, Neil Bethke of Northridge received a letter from one local company (see excerpt), which seems to have trouble with its own product.
Food for thought: At the Genghis Cohen restaurant in the Fairfax area, there is a footnote added to the usual warning about alcoholic beverages that may cause birth defects during pregnancy.
It says: “Please refrain from any acts that may cause pregnancy while on the premises.”
miscelLAny:
The county has contracted with Jantzen Inc. to become Official Manufacturer of Lifeguard Bathing Trunks.
