It Would Take a Lot of Quarters to Get to Vegas : It Would Take a Lot of Quarters to Get to Vegas
Parking meter folks, as you can imagine, draw a fair bit of criticism while on the job. But occasionally they encounter a friendly person. A real friendly person.
Take the time John Gallagher and a colleague were opening meters along Sunset Boulevard and putting in new parts.
“This lady of the evening approached us and grabbed my arm,” recalled Gallagher, now a supervisor of parking meter technicians. “She said, ‘Hey, honey, you’ve got those keys. Why don’t we run off to Vegas together. Both of you guys.’ I told her, ‘Sorry, it’s not my money.”
WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT . . . : Of parking meters (not hookers!). After the item here about an entrepreneur’s attempt to market hoods that would be placed over broken parking machines, I heard from MeterMates of West Hollywood. Although it sounds like a singles group for parking cops, it’s actually a company trying to market stickers that can be attached to dysfunctional coin-confiscators (see accompanying).
The product label says, however, that “use of this product does not in any way signify that the consumer will not be fined.”
James Sherman, the city parking administrator, said the city would welcome the concept if they were used only when the meter was really broken. “Unfortunately,” he added, “people aren’t always honest.”
QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS: The Studio City Star, a Chamber of Commerce newsletter, listed some of the more unusual inquiries the office has received, including:
* What should I do with my Oriental rugs?
* Do you have a camera store in Studio City? Does it have film?
* What kind of sun lotion should I buy?
* Can I raise chickens in Studio City?
* Can you find my high school?
* Can you find my mother?
And, says Executive Director Gloria Carbone Mitchell, “there’s my favorite: ‘What should I do with the dead rat on my lawn?’ ”
SERIAL SERENADERS? Seal Beach seems to be suffering from an epidemic of disharmony. Just the other day the Los Alamitos News Enterprise’s police log carried a report of people in Seal Beach who were “heard singing, ‘New York, New York.’ ” Now comes a subsequent police log entry from that city (Seal Beach, not New York) involving a 20-year-old man “reported singing on the stairway” of a residential complex.
BON APPETIT! Slice up some Spam, add olive oil, chopped onions, bell peppers, put the concoction in some pita bread, and what do you have? “Spita.” Not to mention the winning entry for Guido Meindl of Pasadena in the 1999 Spam National Recipe Contest at the Los Angeles County Fair.
Sounds delish, but I don’t think anything will ever top the recipe for the 1995 winner: Spam Cheesecake.
ANGELENOS ON THE ROAD: Speaking of lip-smacking dishes, John Stodder of L.A. found a menu in Jerusalem with some wild misspellings (see accompanying). The second item is apparently for kids who say naughty words.
MORE BREAKING FOOD NEWS: If this columnist seems a bit shaky, it’s because a street person threw a burrito in my direction as I was walking to work on Spring Street. He missed, and there wasn’t a bit of collateral damage. It was a very tightly wrapped burrito.
miscelLAny:
So Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti is getting a $51,000-a-year pay raise. Think how much he’d be getting if he had won a conviction in the O.J. Simpson case. Or even the Susan McDougal case.
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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.
