Postal Service Might Want to Change Its Tune

Inasmuch as “going postal” is becoming a common expression, Gerry Wright of Long Beach wonders if it was such a smart idea for the U.S. Postal Service to team up with Warner Bros. to market hats that say, “Looney Tunes . . . U.S. Mail” (see photo).

GOING TELEPHONIC: On the other hand, the Postal Service has a remarkable ability to figure out looney addresses.

Rob Mack writes that when his wife, a speech pathologist, was “in the course of completing her master’s degree in communications disorders [she] contacted the Educational Testing Service in New Jersey for resources.”

And, remarkably enough, the material did reach her despite the fact that an ETS clerk’s spelling was severely tested by some non-English place names (see accompanying).

The Macks’ residence is on Rue de la Pierre, not “Roada Lata Air.” And they live in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, not “Ruedelapie.”

Not that it matters but I suspect that the clerk thought the Macks lived on Ruedelapie in the city of Roada Lata Air, not to be confused with Bel-Air.

Oh, yes--Mack’s wife’s first name is Joylene, not “Darlene.”

Talk about a communications disorder.

GOING TELEPHONIC II: Here’s another postal adventure. Bruce Stein of Canoga Park remembers when his mother, who lives on Via Norte Vista in Murietta Hot Springs, called to have a prescription mailed to her. Stein says she “spelled the street as ‘Via, new word, Norte, new word, Vista.’ ” The package arrived because the Postal Service was able to translate the address of “Via Neward Norte Neward Vista.”

THEY WEREN’T CONCENTRATING: Speaking of unusual addresses, Alfonzo Smith of Hawthorne sent along a blurb from the book “The TV Game Shows,” which disclosed that the old TV game show “Concentration,” received mail that was sent to “Consecration,” “Consternation,” “Constellation,” and “Conception,” not to mention “Constipation.”

Author Norman Blumenthal, who was the producer of “Constipation”--excuse me, “Concentration”--adds that it wasn’t always easy deciphering messages inside the letters, either.

Take the case of the viewer who “wanted us to give her a free trip to ‘Oie,’ ” he recalled. “Try to figure that one out. . . . We all worked on it. We checked the World Atlas. No one had ever heard of a place called ‘Oie.’ Eventually, one of our ‘linguistic’ experts solved the riddle. He worked it out phonetically--OH-EYE-E.”

Hawaii.

ENDING ROAD RAGE IN OUR LIFETIME (CONT.): This column quoted a reader who said the apologetic hand-signal she uses while driving is “the gun-to-the-head gesture, [as in] ‘just shoot me, put me out of my misery.’ ”

Meg Sargent and Tim Tanaka each e-mailed me to advise against making that sign. As Tanaka pointed out: “In this day and age, a gang member might take you literally! Yikes!”

miscel LA ny:

It figures to be a happy holiday season for the Harveys. Mrs. Only in L.A. received an offer from big-hearted Bank of America, which informs her that if she uses her B of A credit card to spend $3,750 between now and Jan. 31, she has her choice of one of several lovely gifts, including a thermos bottle. B of A’s address should be Lata Hot Air.

Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.