A Quick Wit Can Disarm a Robber

What would you say if a robber stuck a gun in your back? A Hermosa Beach woman found herself in that position when she was the only customer at a bank inside a supermarket. She exclaimed: “Please don’t shoot me! I don’t have medical insurance.” The gunman laughed and set her free.

*

FAULTY BUSINESS: The faux-earthquake look is popular here for obvious reasons. There’s the Epicentre restaurant in downtown L.A., with its cracked-wall motif and specialized menu (San Andreas Soup, etc.). There’s the fault sculpture that zigzags through Pershing Square. And there’s the mural of a collapsed freeway on the side of a building in West L.A. Now comes Faultline Cleaners in Westwood, with its eye-catching symbol (see photo). When I phoned Faultline, no one wanted to talk about the name. So I was unable to find out if there’s a money-back guarantee should one’s laundry be lost when California slides into the ocean.

*

MOVING ON TO BLACKOUTS: The L.A.-based law firm of Frandzel Share Robins Kaplan & Bloom requested an outage claim form from Pacific Gas & Electric after the blackout in San Francisco forced the firm to close its branch office for the day.

The utility wrote back to say it had duly enclosed an “outrage” claim form. Commented the firm’s Julie Jacquard: “Actually, since some of our people walked up 26 flights only to turn around and walk back down, maybe this is the correct form after all.”

*

BRITS LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: Some “California lingo” translations in “A Brit’s Guide to Las Vegas and the West,” by Karen Marchbank:

* ATM: A generous, wealthy father.

* Squeeze the lemon: Hurry up to make a yellow light. Also, “punch the sun.”

* To attend class: Watch television.

* To breathe blue: Stay calm, based on New Age-speak for the color of the calm aura.

* TV parking: Parking that’s too good to be true--close, immediate and legal (taken from the unrealistic ease with which cars are parked on TV).

* Yell bell: Car alarm. (And a challenge to see if you can breathe blue.)

*

CHANGE IN DIRECTION FOR THE MTA? One wonders if the troubled agency isn’t considering other, cheaper forms of transportation. Just the other day, the MTA named as its new chief financial officer a former executive with the Santa Anita Operating Co.

*

NEW YEAR’S HIT: Pasadena Star-News columnist Charles Cherniss recalled a memorable New Year’s Eve with a group of sailors at the corner of Hollywood and Vine in 1946:

“As midnight struck, a sailor grabbed the wrists of the prettiest girl around, kissed her--she seemed willing at that point--and passed her on to his fellow swabbies. Each kissed her and continued the chain. It soon was my turn. I was too bashful to grasp her wrists. Free, she took a look at this civilian kid’s face and promptly slugged it--much to the curious delight of my so-called pals.”

Not sure whether she was insulted by Cherniss’ bashfulness or if she had signaled the beginning of the women’s lib movement.

*

MOTORING INTO THE PAST: Some milestones listed by Westways, the Southern California Auto Club’s magazine:

* 1916: “A Stutz Bearcat automobile breaks the transcontinental driving record with a time of 11 days, 7.5 hours from San Diego to New York”--an average speed of about 25 mph.

* 1917: “Twenty-three percent of licensed Los Angeles drivers are women, a considerably higher percentage than the national average.”

* 1949: “Half the new cars sold in the United States have radios”--obviously there was no talk radio then. I’m just glad the magazine didn’t also list this occurrence:

* 1963: Steve Harvey backs his father’s Chevrolet into a telephone pole while taking the driving test; immediately flunks.

miscelLAny:

For years, I’ve heard transplants from Manhattan grumble that the pizza there is far superior to L.A.’s. Perhaps. But surely L.A. surpasses the Big Apple in one form of cuisine. That’s why I was stunned to hear from Scott Wilson of Long Beach that a downtown L.A. eatery has the nerve to call itself “New York Burrito.”