Speared by His Own Wanderlust?

Here’s another variation on the story about the hotel that mailed thank-you notes to the homes of its guests, thus raising the suspicions of spouses who had never stayed there.

Dr. William Pollock heard of the case of a gentleman who “came into a hospital emergency room with evidence of intestinal perforation.” An operation revealed that he had swallowed “a plastic spear such as bars use for fruit, etc., in some drinks. The spear was labeled from a bar in Acapulco.

“The surgeon showed it to the wife in the waiting room. She said, ‘I’ve never been to Acapulco.’ Oops.”

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TIME-TRAVELING COMPUTERS: The new movie “The Thirteenth Floor” has characters careening back and forth between the present and 1937 in L.A. Hey, recipients of computerized mail have experiences like that every day (see accompanying). Take the case of Peter Cheoros of Long Beach, who received an appreciative letter from a car dealer for buying a 1908 Mercedes-Benz. Sounds like the Mercedes-Benz people were using a Yugo computer.

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TOO MUCH LATTE? On a visit to Del Mar, Herb Berkus noticed a sign for dogs that have trouble sleeping (see photo).

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MAYBE WE SHOULD SETTLE FOR “I LOVE O.C.”: No sooner did I ask readers to compose the first song about poor, ignored Orange County than reader Richard Harris pointed out that the New York Public Library Desk Reference says no words “in the English language rhyme with the words month, orange, silver or purple.” (Eric Wilson sent me the same bleak news.)

Other readers pointed out that Irving Berlin and Tom Hanks had each tried to rhyme orange with door hinge--with limited success, unless you use a Cockney accent (door ‘inge).

Nevertheless, I’m declaring Helen Heightsman Gordon a winner and awarding her a copy of Kevin Mitchell’s “Essential Songwriter’s Rhyming Dictionary” for writing a tender ballad that begins:

Home, home on the O-range

Where the deer and the antelope look so strange

As they graze on the grain

of my suburb’s grange

Or freely play on the freeway’s flange.

(I checked to make sure that flange was fit for a family newspaper.)

Honorable mention goes to David Kuntz for trying to rhyme “Beemer” (as in BMW) with “culture.”

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TEN YEARS AGO: An exhibition titled “Sk8art” opened in Long Beach, reportedly the first ever skateboard art show. Works included an acrylic “Nude Bowl” (a rendering of the swimming pool of an abandoned nudist colony used by skateboarders) as well as “Nose Pick.” The latter is an expression for a skateboarding maneuver--I’m not sure which one, and really don’t want to know.

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TELEPROMPTER TROUBLES: USA Today reported that Hannah Storm, an NBC sports anchor, introduced analyst Bill Russell as “our special guest, Bill Walton,” during the NBA playoffs.

Russell, the black Hall of Famer, quipped that the confusion could be traced to the professional similarities between himself and Walton, the old redhead from UCLA.

“All Celtics centers look alike,” he explained.

Reminds me of the time that KCBS-TV anchor Jim Lampley opened a newscast with the words: “Good evening, I’m Bree Walker.”

Which, of course, came as a surprise to his co-anchor (and wife), Bree Walker.

But I suppose you could say that all anchors look alike, too.

miscelLAny:

A final thought on the movie “The Thirteenth Floor.” It would be jarring to travel back and forth in time between 1937 and 1999 in L.A. On the other hand, some things wouldn’t change. The absence of an NFL team, for instance.

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.