At last--a cure for holiday excesses!Los Angeles...

At last--a cure for holiday excesses!

Los Angeles attorney David Shaub received a box of tea from China with a label saying it is “able to enlighten drunkenness, relief (sic) tiredness, cure sun-stroke. . . . It has been testified that tea drinking would prevent . . . bodily overweight stoutness.”

SPEAKING OF UNUSUAL GUARANTEES: Louise Scott of Redlands found a repair shop that will enable you to live Monday over again if you’re not satisfied with its work (see excerpt).

We’re unimpressed. Monday, for us, is usually a pretty nondescript day. But we’d love to find a shop that would allow us to relive an occasional Saturday. That’s the day of the week that has most contributed to our own bodily overweight stoutness.

WE KNEW TRAFFIC WAS BAD BUT . . . : Jeff Heusser of Santa Monica noticed that, on one stretch of Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood, authorities have taken to regulating traffic turns in the middle of the night. Heusser explained that this sign (see photo) and other similar prohibitions are posted near the exits of a parking lot where traffic jams occur on Friday and Saturday nights because it is used by patrons of a dance club. And few of them have been drinking tea.

NOT YOUR USUAL FREEWAY TANGLE: We’re still receiving unusual-motorist stories in the mail, such as the following from Max Stollman of West Hollywood:

“Sometime around 1980 you wrote about the strangest excuse used by a man fighting a ticket for speeding. He was on his way to talk about snakes to a group of schoolchildren when one of the snakes escaped from its cage and wrapped itself around his neck. When the officer stopped him, he pleaded with him to help get the snake off him, claiming that he speeded up to attract attention so an officer would come to his aid. The judge let him off, claiming this had to be the most bizarre excuse he had ever heard.”

Memories . . .

TOY STORY: Danny Hernandez, the director of the Hollenbeck Youth Center, says he wishes he could personally thank every person who donated toys to the Boyle Heights facility after it was burglarized earlier in the week.

Thieves stole more than 3,000 presents that had been collected for poor children and gave most of them away before they were arrested. This prompted an outpouring of donations to the Youth Center from comic Jay Leno, Mattel and dozens of just plain folks.

The Youth Center now has an estimated 6,500 toys. But officials say that they would still welcome more donations because their goal is to hand out gifts to 10,000 kids. And they emphasize that any leftover gifts will be given to other youth groups. The center’s phone number is (213) 263-4989.

GRINCHED: There’s been a strange twist in the Hollenbeck toys case. Following the arrest of four suspects, the house of one of them was burglarized of about $3,000 worth of goods, LAPD Detective Sal Nares said. The burglar, who was apparently an acquaintance of the residents, was talked into returning the goods. When he came back to the house, police--who had been alerted--were there to arrest him.

miscelLAny

“Mars Attacks!” is unique among space-invader movies in that L.A. isn’t one of the targets. (How many ways can you knock down City Hall anyway?) But it does contain an echo of a disaster--the L.A. riots. Jack Nicholson, portraying the president, tries to make peace with the aliens in the movie, asking them, a la Rodney King: “Can’t we all get along?”