Maybe There Really Is a Mr. Clean

In the police log of the Irvine World News, Mike McGinnis of Huntington Beach noticed this item: “Reporting party returned home to find his condo cleaned and reorganized, and there were no signs of forced entry.”

A case where good help was truly hard to find.

THE RODENT FLAG OF CALIFORNIA: My thanks to the readers who tried to identify the creature on the state of California freeway sign (see photo). The last I’d heard, the grizzly bear was the official animal of California, but obviously another beast has been substituted.

Raul Blacksten, Scott McCarty and Beverly Antel concluded that the new state animal is a giant rodent--the capybara, a South American creature that can grow more than four feet long.

“Probably modeled after the huge specimens at the Santa Barbara Zoo,” McCarty said.

“Not quite a rat, but close!” commented Antel, who sent along an engraving of the creature (see accompanying).

WHO SWALLOWED ALL THAT DESERT? Michael Helwig, meanwhile, was intrigued not so much by the new state animal but by the new state outline. “I think this is part of Nevada’s secret plan to annex parts of California,” he said.

I’m worried that we may have lost Needles.

“DUH” AWARD: On a recent trip to the Grand Canyon, Dan Fink of L.A. came upon a restroom where a sticker on the toilet tank said: “Reclaimed water. Do not drink.”

ON THE 239th DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS: Ann Gray purchased hair conditioner that, she read, was guaranteed to enhance “tinsel strength.”

A REASON TO WATCH THAT CURSING ON THE FREEWAY: A recent sighting in Santa Barbara of a car with a license plate that said THELORD got me to wondering about an L.A. driver named God.

In 1993, I’d written about an individual whose driver’s license identified him as simply “God.” Yes, God was a he.

The DMV told me at the time that God was 48 years old, with blond hair and blue eyes, stood 6 feet tall, weighed 175 pounds and, interestingly, needed glasses.

I asked the DMV on Monday whether there was still a God on local highways. A spokesman said that because of tightened disclosure policies, he couldn’t say. Nor could he give the license plate number of any vehicles driven by God.

By the way, when I last checked, God had had no traffic tickets on his record. Then again, how many officers would cite God?

miscelLAny:

Ricardo Palavecino of La Puente chuckled at the small print at the bottom of a newspaper ad placed by Biplane, Air Combat and Warbird Adventures of Carlsbad. It said: “Perfect safety record . . . locally owned and operated. . . . No fat, no cholesterol. . . . USDA Approved. . . . Will not shrink. . . . Pilots are sober and do not chew or spit.”

Guess the company just wanted to see if anyone had read that far (the same test I’m giving you).

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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.harvey@latimes.com.