It Was a 5-Foot-Tall Bunny, With Big Ears and Everything, Honest

A resident of Seal Beach reported a sighting of a creature resembling a rabbit that stood more than 5 feet tall the other day. Were the bunnies overrunning the golf course at Leisure World beginning to mutate?

Not yet.

The “Police Blotter” column of the Seal Beach Sun revealed that it was a man in a costume carrying a net as part of a radio station’s promo.

I’m glad to hear the witness hadn’t imagined seeing a giant rabbit the way Jimmy Stewart does in that movie I’ve always hated. What’s its name?

Oh, yes: “Harvey.”

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ON THE BANNED WORDS LIST: Then there was the case of Curtis Barickman of Sherman Oaks, who went into a Valley hospital for knee surgery.

Just before the operation, a nurse asked him: “So your surgery is on your left knee?”

“Right,” he answered.

“No,” she said, “we use the word ‘correct’ here.”

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ANOTHER LANGUAGE LESSON: My colleague Raoul Ranoa snapped a photo of a carefully worded sign in a shop that sells, uh, smokers’ accessories, in Newport Beach, of all places (see accompanying).

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DISSENTER: “This isn’t a real cop . . . just speed,” said the sarcastic placard that Brad Lewis noticed on the windshield of a black-and-white LAPD car. The anonymous author of the message had noticed that the car, parked in Pacific Palisades to discourage speeders, was unoccupied.

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ANOTHER PEST WITH BIG EARS: The Seal Beach Sun, by the way, seems to be growing sensitive over coverage of the rabbit question. After police rejected an idea to reduce the number of critters by killing them with pellet guns, the newspaper editorialized:

“Maybe instead of pointing our pellet guns at the interior of Seal Beach, we should rally at our borders and try to pick off a couple pesky, scandal-seeking reporters.”

Wouldn’t neutering them be more humane?

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.