Thieves Making a Paramount Gaffe

An employee in a Paramount city building gazed out his window and spotted two men breaking into a car across the street. Two detectives arrived promptly and arrested the alleged crooks. The latter demanded to know who had snitched on them, according to City Talk, Paramount’s newsletter.

The deputies pointed across the street to the public-minded employee’s place of business--a Sheriff’s Department substation whose parking lot was filled with black and whites.

“Duh!” concluded the newsletter.

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HEADS UP! Ed Meckle of Tujunga noticed that the “Make 7 Up Yours” display in a market probably should have been arranged in such a way that no one would think that the statements on the T-shirts were supposed to be read separately (see photo).

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HEAVENLY CONNECTIONS: Jeff Bringle of Santa Clarita tipped me that the architect for Holy Innocents Church Hall in Victorville is, appropriately, Lord Architecture Inc. I phoned the San Diego company and learned that Lord specializes in jobs for churches. But the name is just a coincidence, said the owner, Bennett Lord.

“I started out working for a guy who did church work and when he retired I took it over,” Lord said.

The name is a good conversation starter, Lord said. And he quipped that “when you apply for permits with that name, no one’s going to turn you down.”

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DUELING SIGNS: Bettina Hall of Capistrano Beach wonders if the makers of the signs she spotted realize that sometimes, in order to YIELD, you must STOP (see photo).

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SOUNDS LIKE . . . Harold Boucher noticed that Chevrolet’s Web site touts “The Ultimate Outdoors Truck Sweepstakes,” which asks the question: “Into tackling grain fields and wet marshes? Now’s your chance to tell us what would make your Silverado the ‘Ultimate Game and Foul Truck.’ ”

Foul truck? Not keeping it clean, for starters.

I know it works with my Honda.

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SOUNDS LIKE . . . A patient at a Westside hospital, meanwhile, was amused to see the home-care instructions had a barnyard theme (see accompanying). “My husband checked me regularly,” she added, “and at no time did I need to be cooped up for fowl odor.”

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NO FOUL PLAY HERE! The Dodgers, as you may have read, have spoken out against the idea of having a school built on a portion of the stadium parking lot. The club says it would be impractical.

I think I know the real reason.

During the winter, it was revealed that the Dodgers had secretly signed Adrian Beltre, their current third baseman, to a contract when he was 15 years old. The team was fined for that offense. Naturally, the Dodgers don’t want a public school adjacent to the stadium! They don’t want to have truancy officers hanging out in the clubhouse.

miscelLAny:

Ah, Spring Break time is approaching for the younger set. It’s the perfect time, then, to reprise the immortal line uttered by actor Robert Conrad in “Palm Spings Weekend” (1963):

“I drink to the Easter orphans, to all of us wicked little children banded together on the beaches and resorts from Florida to California to observe the rites of spring. Here’s to sex, sand and suds!”

That piece of dialogue, by the way, won a place in the scholarly tome, “Stupid Movie Lines--The 776 Dumbest Things Ever Uttered on the Silver Screen.”

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.