Cell Phone Stories That Ring True
Cell phone users know all sorts of ways to be irritating. They putter along on uncrowded freeways at 40 mph, engrossed in conversation. They shout into the gadget in restaurants. And they can’t make a purchase in public without consulting someone via the phone, no matter how long the line behind them. The last tendency prompted this warning in a Brentwood coffeehouse, noticed by Art Purcell:
“Do Not Talk on Cell Phone and Order at Same Time.”
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HEY, NO CELLULAR CUTS! I’m reminded of another cell phone trick by a story Danielle Fairlee told of a slow-moving line at a Koo Koo Roo in Studio City. An impatient person in front of Fairlee asked a passing employee the phone number of the place. The impatient woman then whipped out her cell phone and called in her order to Koo Koo Roo. The others in line were amazed to hear the counterman asking her--over the phone, naturally--what size drink she wanted. She picked up her food ahead of several of those who were in front of her, and escaped without being jeered.
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HANG UP: A Woodland Hills company received a letter from Pacific Bell addressed to “Manager Mark Unknown Decision” that touted “the service and network reliability that California businesses have counted on for over 90 years” (see accompanying).
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ELECTION TIME REMINDER? Leslie Ogden sent along an ad for a recumbent bike with an inadvertent political spin (see accompanying).
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HI, I’D LIKE TO RESERVE A COMFORTABLE CHAIR NEAR THE CHECKOUT COUNTER: With the economy on the upswing, Southern California hotel rooms seem to be completely booked up, judging from the unusual marquee that Wally Hein of Westlake Village spotted (see photo).
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UNSEALED: It is one of the small ironies of life that Seal Beach has no seals--unless you count Slick, the bronze creature who is landlocked for eternity on the city pier.
Real seals once frolicked there before development, pollution and a shrinking supply of food drove them away. Now the Seal Beach business community is talking of placing a barge near the city’s pier that would lure the animals back.
I hail this action and hope that other areas also will try to live up to their names.
Thousand Oaks, for instance.
A survey by school children once found there were 3,422 oaks in Thousand Oaks. The city stubbornly refused to update its name.
Elsewhere, the founder of the desert town of Twentynine Palms once admitted that he’d seen only 26 palms.
And, finally, the community of Lake Los Angeles not only is in the Antelope Valley but has no lake. Or even an L.A. River.
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THE DEVILS, YOU SAY: You could also argue that Los Angeles isn’t the most accurate Spanish phrase to describe L.A.
In fact, in the 1880s, the lawless pueblo was so un-angelic that newspapers renamed it. Historians David Clark wrote that a letter addressed to “Los Diablos” would be delivered to L.A.
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WONDERS-OF-MODERN-MEDICINE DEPT.: Nina Dendrinos of West Hollywood saw a sign at a market that said, “Umbrellas Hear.”
miscelLAny:
After seeing a job opening for a studio publicist on showbizjobs.com Web site, Karen McGillis of Sierra Madre commented: “I’ve heard strange things about show biz execs--guess they’re true.”
The job requirements for the position included the ability to work “with multiple personalities.”