Calling All Units: Polly Wants an Armed Robbery

Two LAPD officers responding to a Hollywood resident’s complaint of armed intruders knocked on the door and heard a voice inside say, “Hello.”

The cops asked everyone to step outside. But the occupant wouldn’t open the door, responding instead, “Hello, how are you doing?”

The officers tried to reason with the occupant, but the latter repeated, “Hello, how are you doing?”

Eventually, they gained entrance and discovered there were no armed intruders in there, only a parrot. An unarmed parrot at that.

Stork pick-up point? In case your kid wants to know where babies come from, Tony St. John of San Diego sent along the answer (see photo).

Don’t know much about geography: L.A.’s urban sprawl is really out of control, judging from the label spotted by Mark Scott of Chino Hills (see accompanying).

Unclear on the concept: After seeing how a letter from Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) was addressed, Sue Ingram of Camarillo wondered if she could vote twice (see accompanying).

A tip for viewers: Don’t know if you saw it, but KCBS-TV Channel 2 broadcast an expose of valets the other day, finding that some couldn’t resist plucking money left behind in vehicles they were parking.

Personally, I’ve never had such an incident; any cash I carry in my Honda is immediately appropriated by my 9-year-old son.

But I was disappointed that KCBS didn’t examine another, more serious problem: valets who change the settings on my car radio.

Funny food: Mention was made here of Leave Me Alone, a Torrance eatery that, contrary to its attention-seeking name, welcomes groups as well as individual diners.

I was pleased to see that Leave Me Alone made a list of recent funny restaurant names on the chowhounds.com Web site. David Chan of L.A., who submitted some of the names, alerted me to this honor dinner roll:

* Burrp Cafe (Alhambra)

* Private Kitchen (Alhambra)

* Shalom Hunan (L.A.)

* Mad Wolf BBQ (Fullerton)

* Fat Less Express (Culver City)

* Beaux Thai Grill (North Hollywood)

* Wok Don’t Run (Northridge)

And, in the supermarket category:

* Shun Fat (Monterey Park)

Chan adds, by the way, that Private Kitchen is open to the public.

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miscelLAny: I’m proud that I’m one of the electors of the Shrine of the Eternals, a sort of Screwball Hall of Fame created by the Baseball Reliquary of Monrovia. The Reliquary is to major league baseball what the Doo Dah Parade is to the Rose Parade.

One of my votes will go for former minor league catcher Dave Bresnahan, who, in 1987, sculpted a potato in the shape of a baseball and threw it wildly on purpose during a game. When a baserunner figured it was safe to run home, Bresnahan tagged the poor fellow out with the real baseball, which he had concealed. He was banned from the sport but later achieved oddball immortality by appearing on David Letterman’s show.