Letters Send a Message to ‘Star Trek’ Watchers: Beware of the Airwaves

I mentioned that Terri Merryman, a former Channel 9 anchor, once received a phone call from a woman “who claimed I was trying to steal her husband because I went on the air with my long hair and long eyelashes and I was sending messages to him through the television set.”

That brought a note from Eric Stillwell, who worked on the TV series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Said Stillwell: “You can’t imagine some of the strange letters we used to get.”

One was from a Tennessee farmer who “said he had some heavy equipment to move and was wondering if there was any way we could let him borrow our transporter device,” Stillwell said.

And numerous people wrote the show, Stillwell added, “claiming that we were using two-way transmission waves to literally steal the stories for our ‘Star Trek’ episodes from the mind of the viewer as he/she sat watching the screen.”

So I’m not the only would-be screenwriter victimized in this way?

Hands-on approach: Jim Armstrong suspects that diners at the Depot in Torrance do heed one no-parking sign, especially if they read the small print (see photo).

More food for thought: As for the discussion here of the ad saying a Laguna Beach mansion had an “abundance of steak,” Clover Butte of Mar Vista wrote: “I think the ad meant to say ‘an abundance of teak,’ as in teakwood.”

I believe she’s correct. But if I were buying, I think I’d prefer the steak.

Word imperfect: Gene Lock sent along a job posting in which the word “empathetic” was disastrously shortened (see accompanying).

Cut! “Several females were heard screaming in a front apartment,” said the Seal Beach Sun’s police log.

Why?

“They were reenacting scenes from ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer,’ ” the newspaper explained.

Guess you couldn’t expect them to be reenacting “My Dinner With Andre.”

Squirrel squirting: For several months, Marie Harvey of West L.A. has been at odds with a trio of squirrels that dig holes in her back yard. The pesky varmints also climb her trees and gnaw on plums and apricots, often taking one bite out of pieces of fruit and leaving the rest on the branch. Talk about spoiled Westsiders.

Anyway, Harvey--the mother of your columnist--thought she’d found the solution when her grandson Nick gave her a Super Soaker 30 squirt rifle.

The next time the furry invaders appeared, Harvey took aim, looking somewhat like Eliot Ness confronting Al Capone’s gang. But the oldest of the three squirrels--she calls him Grandpa because he’s losing his fur--stood his ground.

“I squirted him in the face and he opened his mouth,” Harvey said. “I kept on shooting and he kept on drinking.”

Harvey fears that Grandpa will alert other squirrels to come around this summer for a refreshing spray.

Hey, I wonder if I could move the rascals with a transporter device?

miscelLAny:

I heard from Steve Hirsch, the psychotherapist who was disturbed that people thought his THRAPST license plate stood for “The Rapist.”

He’s traded in that plate for one that says ONE RACE--referring to his hope for the human race to become unified.

But, this being Southern California, ONE RACE has also been misinterpreted. Hirsch senses some people “think it means something about racing vehicles.”

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, 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.