Hikers Avoid Snacking Snakes

Bob Peterson of La Canada Flintridge forwarded a National Park Service bulletin about a recent nature walk in Topanga in which hikers were advised to “bring water and snake.” I didn’t hear of any unfortunate incidents that occurred, so I can only guess that no reptiles tried to snack on any hikers’ body parts.

THE WEIRD WORLD OF ANIMALS (CONT.): The following exhibits (see accompanying) include . . . Whoops. I guess the eerie-sounding “DOGNBOX” item isn’t an animal item, after all, but it’s too late now. Deloris St. John of Laguna Niguel, who snapped the photo in Denmark, says it’s actually a box for “day and night” bank deposits.

Now I’m worried about a classified ad that an anonymous reader sent me. Is the sale item a dog or some sort of nut dish?

Finally, there’s the “cat” sign that Bob Lewicki of Blue Jay spotted in England. Don’t know what that means and not sure I want to know.

STUPID DRIVER TRICKS: My former colleague, Stephanie O’Neill, was driving down the San Diego Freeway in Van Nuys when the traffic suddenly jammed up. As she got closer, she said, “I saw this guy on top of his car, riding it like a surfboard with his left arm through the driver’s window, doing the steering. He was going very slow, maybe 5 to 10 mph. Then he stood on top of the car, dancing and laughing. He was gorgeous and I figured it was a movie. But I didn’t see any cameras. I guess he was gorgeous and crazy.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Jim Bass of Bellflower, meanwhile, was on the Long Beach Freeway “following a VW Bug. There was a lot of newspaper debris flying around across lanes. As we were doing 55 down the freeway the guy in the VW reached out and caught one of the pieces of newspaper, pulled it in and began reading it! He was either really talented or really bored.”

ASKED . . . : “How many accidents are caused by those people who are doing funny things in their cars (shaving, drying fingernails, reading, etc.)?” asked Gordon Shaffer.

ANSWERED (IN PART). . . : F.N. Wright of Agoura recalled a BMW driver who was “on her cell phone wildly gesticulating on occasion with the hand that she should’ve been steering with. She finally put the phone down (dropped it) and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands after she jumped the curb and took out a row of newspaper vending machines.”

FOR PRE-NOVEMBER SALE? Joelle Mancuso bought a package of oatmeal that may have been a bit old. No, it didn’t carry an expired date. But it did offer this “Famous People” trivia question on the package: “Who was the only U.S. president whose son also became president?” It gave John Adams as the answer. Is the company refusing to concede victory to George Bush’s lad?

SPEAKING OF VOTING SNAFUS: The absentee ballot for Tuesday’s municipal election in Burbank devotes a full page to a cartoon character named Chad, warning citizens to make sure Chad isn’t “hanging around” when they’re through voting. After all, we don’t want the Supreme Court to have to rule on the Burbank city clerk race, do we?

miscelLAny:

Outside the Pyramid arena in Long Beach, Val Rodriguez encountered a scalper asking $10 per ticket for the Cal State Long Beach-Utah State basketball game. But Rodriguez was in luck. He qualified for the guy’s a senior citizen rate: $7.

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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.har vey@latimes.com.