Crowding the coroner: The L.A. County coroner...

Crowding the coroner: The L.A. County coroner is turning away bodies. At least, live ones. Since the media recently publicized the unusual gifts that the department is marketing, including personalized toe tags and beach towels with the outline of a body, the coroner has been swamped with requests in person and by phone.

So much so that the department has decreed that it will henceforth sell on a mail order basis only. There will be no walk-in business--with certain exceptions. Barbara Hardin of Shaker Heights, Ohio, who is visiting L.A., phoned the coroner’s office and was told the only people who could buy in person were those who showed up “seeking loved ones.”

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Some people doubted cold fusion, too: You may recall that, in an advance look at Pasadena’s Invention Convention, The Times mentioned a battery that supposedly runs on urine.

Wouldn’t you know it? Since word of the breakthrough began circulating, doubters have popped up.

“Definitely outrageous” was the reaction of a government battery development expert in Illinois. An electrochemist at North Carolina State University said he would hesitate to invest 5 cents in the product.

Hey, it’s not as though the brainchild is perfect. A co-inventor disclosed this week at the convention, for instance, that “the difference in pH levels in the urine does make a difference in the energy output of a battery. . . . People under medication or who have a high content of alcohol . . . will lower the energy output. . . . There may be times when you have to invite family and friends over to. . . . “

Oh, stop.

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We wouldn’t use this guy as a battery supplier: Walter Douglas took today’s photo of a panhandler who practices truth in freeloading.

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More bathroom humor: Our recent item on the Santa Monica company whose self-cleaning restroom is being tested at some gas stations brought to mind an incident involving a friend. This gent, a member in our brotherhood of the bald, bought a ticket to a show in Las Vegas but refused to tip the maitre d’.

Expecting to be seated miles from the stage, he was courteously escorted to a front-row seat instead. The show opened with a comic who proceeded to talk about life on the road. The comic said he often has to wash in gas station restrooms and, invariably, finds hair in the soap.

“I’ve always suspected that there was one guy who was leaving his hair in the soap all over the country,” the comic continued, “and ladies and gentlemen, I’m happy to say that I’ve just found him! There he is!”

And as the crowd burst into laughter, the spotlight shone on the shiny skull of my friend, who has stayed out of gas station restrooms ever since.

miscelLAny:

Tomorrow, as you no doubt know, is L.A.’s 212th birthday. On No. 200, the city received an appropriate birthday greeting--a 5.1 magnitude earthquake.