Get me to the flood on time:...

Get me to the flood on time: Carl Esser of Silver Lake writes: “I made my way through the deluge to a market on Sunset Boulevard, but apparently was late for the ceremony. A hand-lettered sign announced: ‘The Floor is Wed.’ ”

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Literary notes: Inasmuch as O.J. Simpson has written a book while in jail, one wonders if he’ll repeat one of his own quotations. Rick Kissell of Victorville found it in the book “Get Motivated! Daily Psych-Ups.”

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ZZZZ Bust: Barry Minkow, the carpet-cleaning con man from Reseda, recently was released from prison. The next logical step? An appearance on the “Late, Late Show With Tom Snyder” on Friday night, of course.

Minkow figures to be a bit more modest than when he appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show with other youthful millionaire entrepreneurs in 1986. Minkow boasted at the time, “I could sell frozen yogurt in a snowstorm.”

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Winfrey, herself, described him this way: “In the 11th grade, this whiz kid was making more than his school principal.”

Actually, more than 90% of Minkow’s ZZZZ Best company’s purported sales were faked. But no one knew that when he graced the Winfrey show. At one point, when a young closet-designing whiz tried to squeeze in a few words, Minkow snapped: “Excuse me, Neil. Your sales are $17 million; mine are $50 (million). End of story.”

Not quite. There were still those 57 counts of fraud.

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Mattress royalty: No, this has nothing to do with those amorous adventurers, Charles and Di. It’s about Al Greenwood, Long Beach’s self-crowned Bedspread King--and rising media star.

Greenwood, who writes a humorous commentary in his newspaper ads, was quoted a while back in the Chicago Tribune. The writers of that newspaper’s Metro column, INC., (there is no Only in Chicago column) were taken with Greenwood’s suggestion that, in place of soldiers, Washington should dispatch overseas “a valuable strike force that our country has never utilized before: Our L.A. gang member street brigade.”

Word of his fame reached the makers of the sitcom “Sisters,” who wove one of the Bedspread King’s TV commercials into the plot. Flattering, though Greenwood lamented: “I don’t know why they have to use that stupid laugh track.”

As if all this isn’t enough, he has become an unofficial commentator for KROQ radio. After Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was sacked by the Clinton Administration for her remarks about masturbation, the station asked Greenwood for his views.

“I told them,” he said, “that if the government finds out masturbation is enjoyable, we’ll probably be charged an entertainment tax.”

Talk about being out of uniform!In her local newspaper, Evelyn Ross of Hemet came across a misspelling in an interview with a West Point cadet-to-be who was quoted as saying that while the academic load is tough, “it’s just like any other college” in that you have to “bare down.”

miscelLAny British novelist Michael Ridpath’s work “Free to Trade” is a murder mystery about the bond market (but written too late to include Orange County). One of the critics praising the novel is L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, no less. His Honor is evidently having trouble keeping the names of potboiler-scribblers straight, however. In the blurb he sent to Ridpath’s publisher, HarperCollins, the mayor began: “Move over James Grisham. . . .” Let’s hope The Firm doesn’t find out.