One Holiday Shopper in Big Bear Experiences Unseasonable Confusion
‘Tis the season to become disoriented while shopping. The crime log of the Big Bear Grizzly, in terse cop talk, carried a “report of purse stolen from grocery cart while shopping....
“Party was talking to store staff about high price of potatoes and turned around and continued shopping, placing potatoes in the wrong cart.” The newspaper added that the missing cart and purse were found “by the bananas.”
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Some stores are a bit confused too: Nan Williams of West Hollywood sent along an unclear-on-the-concept item featuring shoes that few female joggers would use (see accompanying).
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Follow these simple directions: Ed Schlossman of Thousand Oaks noticed a set of Christmas tree instructions that called for some wacky parts (see accompanying). Wonder if it was similar to the tree I once saw that was made of beer cans.
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Wedded to more than one term: As to the search for a word that could be a synonym for either ex-husband or ex-wife, Walt Poor suggests “stalemate.”
For a more poetic term, Conrad Max writes:
“How about ‘rausspouse,’ the German raus meaning ‘out’?”
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Splitsville (cont.): The discussion of divorce terms began with Orange County librarian Cindy Mirallegro, who is campaigning to have “wasband” accepted in dictionaries as ex-hubby. She thanked me for the mention in the column, adding, “Webster’s is watching for the use of the word in all sorts of places.”
Glad this column qualifies as some sort of place.
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A couple of who-sent-its: Mystery novelist John Morgan Wilson of West Hollywood is a bit mystified about why he occasionally receives faxes intended for show biz folks.
One fax included a contract calling for the current cast of MTV’s “The Real World” reality show to appear at a Los Vegas hotel on New Year’s Eve (they’d “have to split the $10,500 fee,” Wilson said, “but they’d get lots of perks such as unlimited free booze, cigarettes, a free party room and so on.”)
I’ll go if they don’t want to.
More recently, Wilson got a fax “from someone involved in NBC’s ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,’ involving script changes for a re-shoot on an episode called ‘Mercy.’ ”
The plot centers on whether a death was the result of a “mercy killing” or was a cold-blooded murder to cover up an extramarital affair.
Wilson, the co-author of “Blue Moon,” said: “Since I received only two of the script pages, ending with ‘the room awaits the verdict,’ and I’m a mystery writer, I can’t wait to find out how this one turns out.”
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miscelLAny: A reader sent along some safety tips that a local police department had apparently issued for elves (see accompanying). Hey, Santa can’t watch over all of the little guys himself.
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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.
