You Never Know What You’ll Need During Blackout, or How Long It’ll Last

Heart of darkness: Peter Ulrich of Arcadia spotted a 99 Cents Only ad that recommended critical emergency items for coping with a blackout, including flashlights, batteries and drinking water. And, oh yes, condoms.

The parade’s over: The locals captured the NBA title on June 15, so I’m reminding drivers to take down their Laker flags this Friday.

You know the rules. Vehicle flags, like Christmas lights, should be put in storage two weeks after the event they celebrate.

Some of the flags are starting to look ragged. They’re all becoming boring--as though no L.A. team has ever won a championship before.

People, let’s cooperate in this matter. Sure, I know there’ll be some slackers, just as there’s one in every neighborhood who leaves up the Christmas lights all year.

But let’s not force Mayor James K. Hahn to issue a “Take Down Your Laker Flags” declaration as his first official act.

From flags to chimes: In a senior citizens’ newspaper, Jack Rider of Brea found a class where the students are encouraged to be nuisances (see accompanying).

Good luck: After seeing a notice about a feline study, Audree Kenton of Palm Desert wrote: “My cat does not accept advice from anyone!” (see accompanying)

Speaking of critters: The item here about the Magic Castle closing temporarily because of vermin infestation prompted founder Milt Larsen to write: “It just proves that cockroaches can multiply faster than magicians’ rabbits.”

Actually, Larsen said, the cockroaches showed up after “a ruptured water line jarred many hillside homes and hotels, including our club.”

Larsen noted that the Magic Castle has survived earthquakes, riots and blackouts, not to mention cockroaches, over the last 38 years. “Now that’s magic,” he added.

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Utah anymore: Jim Vance of Long Beach took issue with my contention that “The Wizard of Oz” does not belong on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest screen thrillers.

In the early 1940s, when he was 5, he saw the film with his 9-year-old brother at a matinee in Murray, Utah. Everything went well, he said, until the scene where Dorothy “sees ‘Auntie Em’ in a crystal ball, and calls out to her, pleading. . . .”

Suddenly, the image of the Wicked Witch appears. She stares into the camera and cackles, “I’ll get you, my pretty.”

Said Vance, “It was just too much for my brother, who screamed, wet his pants, and ran out of the theater and home!”

And 5-year-old Jim? He said: “My mother came down to the theater to rescue me--after all, I was a small child left in a big theater by myself--and found me sitting there, happily enjoying the movie!”

The Wicked Witch would like this: Susan Tellem of Malibu figures the hairstyling blurb she came upon was supposed to say “flip” (see accompanying).

miscelLAny: The list here of goofy questions that mainlanders pose about Catalina Island reminded Ross Amspoker of Palmdale of a visit there with his family. “As we approached the island,” he said, “my 7-year-old grandson, Stephen, asked his father, ‘What language do they speak on Catalina?’

“And after we landed, his 4-year-old sister, Rachel, looked at the fast food places and the milling people, and insisted: ‘This is no island!’ ”

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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.