Grooming in Your Car Can Be Interrupted by a Strategically Placed Pothole

Not to be nosy about other motorists, but . . . : Today’s narrator of Stupid Driving Tricks is Samantha Kimmel, who says, “I think I’ve won the ‘No, No, I Can’t Actually Be Seeing This’ Prize.”

What Kimmel saw was a guy whizzing along in a Jeep while studying his face in his rear-view mirror and trimming his nose hairs.

Where’s a good pothole when you need one?

Is that you, L.A.? The Los Angeles Times, as you can imagine, receives a lot of odd phone calls. And some of the oddest come from brain-dead telemarketers staring at a computer screen, based who knows where. A colleague who keeps track of these things tells me that the newspaper heard from one solicitor who said, “I am trying to reach Mr. L.A. Times.” Another asked: “Is Mr. or Mrs. Times there?” And, one caller who saw a Latino (or French) connection in the company name, asked if this was “La Times.”

Expanding my horizons: I’ve been unable to persuade the boss to change the name of this column to Only in the World despite all the foreign countries mentioned here.

Today, for instance (see accompanying), I can offer references to nations in southwestern Europe (thanks to Rosie Rosenlof of Carson), Eastern Europe, and South America (the last one being misspelled).

I’d guess I’d even be willing to settle for Only in the United States. After all, Marlene White of Cypress sent along a reference to a state in the Pacific Northwest that is available for purchase (unless the garage-sale poet meant to say “oven”). Then there’s that noisy table . . .

Kirk Gibson, where have you gone? In “Murderers’ Row,” a new collection of baseball mysteries, novelist Michael Connelly has a short story centering on the dramatic home run by the Dodgers’ Gibson in the 1988 World Series. The game-winning hit, which propelled the Dodgers to a world championship, came in the ninth inning.

“It was a moment that was cherished by so many for so long,” Connelly writes in “Two-Bagger.”

“A time before the riots, before the earthquake, before O.J.”

Two LAPD officers working a case 13 years later discover that each attended that 1988 game (as spectators). But one of the officers stayed until the game ended while one left early (missing Gibson’s hit).

Connelly’s story explores how the beat-the-Dodger-traffic mentality of the one officer is a metaphor for his troubled career.

I’m proud to say I haven’t left a Dodger game early in years. Then again, I have an 8-year-old son who would scream bloody murder if I even suggested it.

Stop the music: On Tuesday, I ran an ad for a chime class containing a typographical error that altered it to say that five people “must offend” for the class to be held.

Commented Mark Temple: “If the class really wanted to ‘offend,’ they should switch to the accordion.”

miscelLAny: Phyllis Waggner of West Hollywood was riding Amtrak to San Jose when her coach lost power for part of the trip. That, she points out, is a true rolling blackout.

*

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.