Plight of the iguana: When 8-year-old Alex...

Plight of the iguana: When 8-year-old Alex Shindel of Whittier saw his iguana, Rambo, lying motionless in the family pool, he feared the worst for the three-foot-long creature.

“He fished the lizard out,” said his surgeon father, Neal, “and I did a few chest compressions on him. But he wasn’t breathing and he was totally limp. I said, ‘Forget it. He’s gone.’ ”

His son rejected the diagnosis and didn’t bother to seek a second opinion.

“He (Alex) had already blown in the lizard’s mouth before I got out there,” Shindel said. “He said, ‘No, he can’t be!’ and resumed CPR on him.”

The, a, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation--Alex didn’t actually touch Rambo--worked.

“Pretty soon his leg moved,” Shindel said. “Then his eyes opened.”

Rambo, a frequent user of the pool, may have been stunned by a fall off the pool’s slide (he tends to get acrobatic). He seems his old scaly self now, but he has avoided the water, apparently content to be a lounge lizard.

Le Gloved One? Barry Lapes, a collector of Michael Jackson memorabilia, counts among his treasures a copy of a letter from one of the singer’s attorneys regarding a strange mix-up.

The attorney wrote that some of “Michael’s writer’s royalties” had been paid, instead, “to a writer in France, Mick Jackson.”

Bad!

Speaking of international incidents: On Thursday, we reproduced an ad from Royal Caribbean, which is offering a tour package out of what the company called “Wayne Newton Airport” in Orange County.

We blamed this desecration of Duke Wayne on a “British airline,” when in fact Royal Caribbean is a Miami-based cruise line.

Our apologies. But we might add in our own defense that we were really disoriented following the announcement by the singer Prince that he is ending his recording career.

In a secretive state: Nine of the 10 regions with the highest percentage of unlisted phone numbers are in California, according to Survey Sampling Inc. of Fairfield, Conn.

Don’t bother with the sociological theories about the Golden State. Pac Bell has one of the cheapest rates for concealing one’s phone number. The charge is about 30 cents a month in California, compared to $1.88 in New York and $4 in Idaho.

Unlist of the day: The 10 regions most likely to have unpublished phone numbers: 1--Las Vegas, 64.6% unlisted.

2--Fresno, 63.1%

3--L.A.-Long Beach, 61.7%

4--Oakland, 61.6%

5--San Jose, 60.2%

6--Sacramento, 59.8%

7--Riverside-San Bernardino, 57.7%

8--Anaheim-Santa Ana, 57.1%

9--San Diego, 56.5%

10--Bakersfield, 55.2%.

No. 1-ranked Las Vegas is, of course, the real home of Wayne Newton Airport.

miscelLAny:

Sports fans who have given up on the Dodgers and want to get into the mood for football season can pick up an inspirational item in their local convenience store (see photo). But the question with this product is: Will it make your car smell like the Raiders’ locker room?