A Bed Fine Enough for a Feline

Are Cat Armoires Next?: A Texas company has announced plans to manufacture the world’s first bunk bed for cats. The feline furniture will sell for $79.

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood: There must be something in rock singers’ contracts specifying that they aren’t allowed to enunciate lyrics. Which is fine by us, because we’re due for another installment of dumb lyrics to good songs, but we don’t have enough reader submissions, so the only alternative is to quote dumb misheard lyrics.

Conveniently, someone just sent us a copy of “When a Man Loves a Walnut” (Fireside, 1997), the latest collection of misperceived lyrics from Gavin Edwards, author of “ ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy.”

The part we hate about books like this is when the misheard versions match what we thought the lyrics were too. For instance, we always assumed (as did several of our co-workers, which makes us feel slightly less stupid) that ELO was singing, “Don’t bring me down, Bruce” and that Wang Chung was saying, “We were cool on Christ.”

But, according to Edwards, the actual lyrics are “Don’t bring me down--grroosss” and “We were cool and crazed.”

Other misinterpreted lyrics in Edwards’ book include:

* The Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus is just all right with me” misheard as “Jesus is just a rat with beads.”

* Jimmy Buffett’s “Wasting away again in Margaritaville” recast as “Wasting away in my gorilla suit.”

* The Eagles’ “It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford” changed to “in some fathead’s Ford.”

* The opening line of “Hotel California”--”On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair”--perceived as “On a dark desert highway, Cool Whip in my hair.”

* Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl” discombobulated into “Simian Girl.”

* The Beatles’ “Looking through a glass onion” misconstrued as “Looking for a class on Jung.”

Additional listening errors can be found on two Web sites, https://www.kissthisguy.com and https://www.enteract.com/~jessicar/lyrics/.

Weird Polls Bureau: Some experts say partisan politics are driving the debate over President Clinton’s impeachment, but we blame dietary habits. According to a survey in Fortune magazine, 79% of Oscar Mayer hot dog purchasers are pro-impeachment, whereas 79% of Burger King customers are pro-Clinton.

Impeachment Joke du Jour: From Bill Maher: “The Republicans want three witnesses--Vernon Jordan, Sydney Blumenthal and Monica Lewinsky, or as they call them, See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Dry Clean No Evil.”

This joke was probably written by a hot dog lover.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Dads Bowl for Custody of 4-Year-Old Daughter! Little Girl’s Fate Decided by Spare in 10th Frame!” (Weekly World News)

Maybe the Senate could use this method to settle the impeachment trial.

Roy Rivenburg’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Unpaid Informants: Wireless Flash News Service, Frederica Mathewes-Green, Carolyn Kimball, Hotline. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The rest of the week we’re fighting with the cat over who gets to sleep in the top bunk.