One Plant They Just Can’t Sell Fast Enough For

More evidence that we live in a rush-rush-rush time: Associated Press reporter Jeff Wilson came upon a sale called an “Impatience Clearance” in Oxnard (see photo). No haggling there! Oddly enough, the sign was above a display of impatiens.

CALL OFF THE SWAT TEAM: The police log of the Los Alamitos News-Enterprise reported this item out of Cypress:

“Ball Road, 4900 block, 5:57 p.m.: A 9-year-old boy was throwing a fit because his mother refused to buy him an Icee.”

FIGHT ON FOR OL’ WATERGATE: As a USC grad with lots of school spirit, I was chagrined over the number of fellow alumni who were involved in the Watergate scandal.

I’ve held out hope ever since that an ex-Trojan would give the school a measure of redemption by turning out to be Deep Throat.

But, for more than a quarter-century, the identity of the informer has been a mystery.

“In Search of Deep Throat,” a new book by Nixon attorney Leonard Garment, contends that one-time White House consultant John Sears was DT. Sears has denied it, I was relieved to read. He’s a Notre Dame grad.

Garment’s book at least praised one USC alumnus, Nixon press spokesman Ron Ziegler. The author described Ziegler as “not your average advertising apparatchik.”

During the Nixon administration, Garment continued, Ziegler “not only could repeat verbatim the jungle tour spiel he had given when he was a guide at Disneyland, but could deliver it backwards.”

Hmmm. Maybe that explains why some of Ziegler’s responses to reporters’ questions during the Watergate era didn’t make much sense.

SOUNDS FAMILIAR . . .: To the list of items with unusual names reported here--Chip and Dale furniture, Chester drawers, Rod Iron fence--you can add a Kraft of wine, contributed by Claire Frith of L.A. (see accompanying).

In this heat, I think I’d prefer a picture of beer.

WITH A MELTED CHEESE ROOF? E.A. Paddock of Ontario saw an ad for a house that had a high-calorie ceiling (see accompanying). And a noisy eating area.

YOU GIVE US 22 MINUTES, WE’LL GIVE YOU CORNY JOKES: KFWB is an all-news station now, but in the years after its founding by Warner Bros. in 1925, it broadcast variety shows.

Mogul Jack Warner even sang on the air “under the delightfully baroque name of Leon Zurado,” wrote Scott Eyman (“The Speed of Sound”). “Since Jack wasn’t much of a singer, and knew it, he would interrupt himself by telling corny jokes.”

The problem, Eyman wrote, was that Warner Bros. “wasn’t exactly sure how to fill up all of KFWB’s air time.”

Obviously, this was before traffic reports were necessary every other minute.

SPEAKING OF THE COMMUTES HERE: Gary Mittin of Tarzana is trying to sell his rights to the Internet domain name hell-ay.com for $25,000. And he’ll throw in westhell-ay.com for another 5K.

miscelLAny:

If only Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) originally had decided to hold her fund-raiser at a venue near the Playboy Mansion, she never would have run afoul of party officials in the first place. I’m referring to producer Aaron Spelling’s mansion. Thousands of people could be accommodated in Spelling’s gift-wrapping room alone.

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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, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.