Returning to the Scene of the Crime

Fore! When a man brought a golf cart into a store in Paramount to buy some parts, the store owner recognized it as one that had been stolen.

He told the customer to wait and phoned sheriff’s deputies, whereupon the man became suspicious and fled.

Deputies had no trouble catching up with him, according to the city’s newsletter.

Yep, he was racing down the street in the cart.

NOW FOR A DIFFERENT KIND OF GETAWAY: That wasn’t the only odd sight in Paramount of late.

As a code enforcement officer left a business, she saw a sea gull repeatedly dive-bombing her car. The bird kept swooping near her windshield.

Finally, the officer got out to check her car. She found that someone had ringed her antenna with a doughnut. The gull apparently had been interrupted at breakfast.

NICE TRIES: Perfection, as we all know, is difficult to achieve. (Sometimes even this column falls short.)

So today I want to salute three companies that came oh-so-close, one firm with a guarantee that’s not quite 100% (submitted by Nathaniel Otterson), another with a pretty close eye to detail (from Joel Rapp) and a third that is striving to improve its proof-reading (see accompanying).

STUPID DRIVER TRICKS: “While eastbound on the 210 heading for Santa Anita racetrack, my brother and I saw an old, beat-up Cadillac,” recounted Larry Fredeen of Bakersfield. “It really looked like it had just barely survived a demolition derby at Ascot Park. As we got closer, we could see why: The driver had his ‘Racing Form’ spread out on the wheel, completely blocking his view of traffic.”

Or almost.

“He did have two eye holes punched through the paper,” Fredeen said.

SOUR MUSIC: Cherie Hippler of Cypress was motoring south on the 405 Freeway in Seal Beach when she “noticed a man in the next lane playing a clarinet. It was pointing through the steering wheel! I guess he was steering with his knees. I kept visualizing the accident that could happen.”

She added: “Too bad we can’t hear from the folks DOING these weird things to see their rationalizations.”

Funny you should say that. . . .

A CONFESSION: The account by a service station owner of drivers forgetting to remove gasoline nozzles from their gas tanks prompted an admission from Mike Owen of Hermosa Beach.

Owen said he’s forgotten twice, though on neither occasion did he rip the hose loose from the pump. And his omissions weren’t the result of chatting on a cell phone (the usual cause, according to the station owner).

Owen said he just got caught up with cleaning his windshield and “forgot what else was going on. . . . It’s really embarrassing. Please don’t tell anyone.”

Your secret’s safe with me and the readers, Mike!

miscelLAny:

As for the blond seen displaying a license plate that said NOTDUM, Anna Kadiev wrote that the plate might “stand for ‘No Tedium’, since blonds have more fun.”

Then Kadiev asked me whether I had a vanity plate that referred to my hair situation.

Well, I wanted mine to be blank, but the DMV said bald plates aren’t allowed.

*

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.