When They Hit the Ceiling, These Execs Just Move to the Next Floor
Quadrophobia Bureau: We’ve heard of buildings where the elevators don’t list a 13th floor. Now there seems to be a jinx on the fourth floor, as well. At the corporate headquarters of Hunt-Wesson Foods in Fullerton, for example, the entire fourth floor mysteriously vanished over Memorial Day weekend.
Apparently, company bigwigs decided that changing the number of the floor--which houses all the executive suites--would stop employees from referring to management as “the fourth floor” (as in “You won’t believe what the fourth floor did today” or “Naturally, the layoffs don’t affect the fourth floor”).
So presto, they turned it into the fifth floor. The elevators now stop at 1, 2, 3 and . . . 5, all room numbers on the floor no longer begin with a “4” and corporate directories were reprinted to eliminate any trace of the number that dare not speak its name.
We wanted to ask Hunt-Wesson if it also plans to refer to the Fourth of July as July 5, but we were told that the company’s lone spokeswoman was on the road (perhaps in her new five-wheel-drive sport utility vehicle) and unavailable for comment.
Meanwhile, employees have begun referring to management as “the fifth floor,” and the Beatles are now known as the Fab Five.
Dial-a-Confession: A Catholic church in Britain is experimenting with a hotline that allows sinners to repent and receive absolution over the phone, according to the Times of London.
We were hoping for an automated system (“For coveting thy neighbor’s ox or donkey, press 1 . . .), but apparently it uses live priests.
Random Statistics Department: The amount of money that Austin Powers would need to spend on periodontal surgery and cosmetic dentistry in order to get his teeth into decent biting shape, according to a Philadelphia periodontist: $20,000.
Ken Starr in a Can: From the nation that brought us Godzilla and Walkmans, now there’s Infidelity Detection Cream. According to the London Telegraph, it’s a hot-selling gel in Japan that is surreptitiously rubbed onto a man’s clothing before he leaves home for work.
If he takes off his socks for more than 15 minutes while gone, the gel alters the color of the fabric. If he takes a shower during the day, it reacts with the water to create a blister on his back. Also available is an aerosol that can be sprayed onto suspicious underwear and turns bright green if traces of fluids from sex are present.
Chicken Soup for the Capitalist’s Soul: Our souls are drowning in chicken soup. As the roster of “Chicken Soup” book titles reaches the saturation point--”Chicken Soup for the Yugoslavian Dictator’s Soul,” “Chicken Soup for the Vegetarian’s Soul” (no actual chickens were harmed in the making of this book) and “Chicken Soup for the Person Who Invented Those Plastic Things on the End of Shoelaces’ Soul”--the authors are turning to other money-making schemes.
The latest venture is the release of three “Chicken Soup for the Soul” board games. Can a psychic hotline and “Chicken Soup” action figures be far behind?
Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Cruel Guard Feeds Teens to Fire Ants” (Weekly World News)
Unpaid Informants: Candace Wedlan, Wireless Flash News Service. Off-Kilter’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
