Don’t Seal Deal With Devil Just Yet

El Diablo Department: It’s a sad commentary on our time that so many people are willing to trample the rights of others in order to achieve fame and fortune.

Not only are such methods immoral, they’re inefficient. A much easier way is to cut a deal with Satan. But you have to know what you’re doing--which is why we recommend a recent Weekly World News story on “How to sell your soul to the devil and still come out OK!”

In the article, “top law professor Dan Rathenberg” offers no-nonsense negotiating tips for bargaining with Beelzebub. For example: “Play hardball. Remember, you’ve got something valuable that Satan wants--your immortal soul. Don’t settle for $1 million just because that’s Lucifer’s first offer.”

The professor also urges people to beware of loopholes. According to WWN, Satanic contracts are notorious for hidden clauses, so if you trade your soul for eternal life, “make sure there’s a provision that you won’t ever be buried alive, permanently paralyzed or sentenced to life in prison.”

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Other tips:

* Instead of selling your soul, just lease it for a few years after your death.

* Always have the final document reviewed by a qualified attorney. Says Rathenberg: “You’d be amazed at how many people sign contracts with the devil without even reading them.”

Another alternative, suggested by one of our co-workers, is to circumvent Satan by taking your soul public and selling shares in it on the stock market.

Empty Manger Syndrome: An emergency “backup baby Jesus” is lying in a Tucson courthouse manger scene--under guard--after the original was stolen Monday. According to the Arizona Daily Star, Jesus-napping has become so epidemic in the city that one hospital placed its Nativity scene on a roof, and another has Mary, Joseph and Jesus wired to security devices.

“Every single statue has its own alarm,” said a hospital executive. “If any statue moves, all hell breaks loose.”

Weird Contests Bureau: A Mr. Clean competition in which male contestants had to diaper a baby doll, clean out a trash can, fold laundry and mop a kitchen floor inside a fake kitchen at New York City’s Penn Station has been won by Brooks Booker of Cincinnati and Greg Guza of Idaho Falls, Idaho.

The Mr. Clean clones each won a free trip to the Caribbean.

Lunatic Fringe Bureau: A Los Angeles psychic claims that your bad habits reveal what kind of animal you were in a past life. For example, people who constantly bite their nails were probably parrots on the lost continent of Atlantis. Humans who squint a lot are former owls; people with bulging eyes are usually reincarnated frogs; criminals were cobras; and busybodies used to be chipmunks.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Girl, 11, Suffers From Rare ‘Mannequin Disease’! She Has No Arms, No Body Hair and Her Skin is Covered with a Wax-Like Coating!” (Weekly World News)

In her next life, she’ll probably be a stolen Nativity statue.

Roy Rivenburg’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Unpaid Informants: Wireless Flash News Service. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.