Motorists on the Pomona Freeway Experience a Healthy Sense of Frustration

Need another reason to hate broccoli? Commuters in the Monterey Park area found one Tuesday morning. A truck spill of the dreaded green stuff on the Pomona Freeway severely hardened traffic arteries, even though it didn’t have any butter on it.

Thanks for the warnings: Neil McCarthy of San Clemente contributed a couple of scary-sounding items, a mat that may sweep you off your feet and a shop that has a forceful way of dealing with fingernails (see accompanying).

Another sign of the economic downturn? Margaret Law of Alhambra found an employment agency with a meaty claim (see accompanying).

What’s in a name: Any time I see a product or system with the word “smart” in the title, I am skeptical--a view underscored by a sighting by Jerry Gediman of Cambria (see photo).

I see Reese Witherspoon in the movie version: The police log of USC’s Daily Trojan said that security officers “responded to a report of two students involved in a verbal dispute” and “determined that one of them accused the other of taking her sunglasses when they were roommates the previous semester.” The second student denied the scandalous charge and both claimed to have a receipt for the shades.

“The officers told the students that the matter would be referred to Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards and released them,” the Daily Trojan said.

Surely some sort of joint custody arrangement can be worked out so peace can be restored to the campus.

Genius available: I didn’t mention my recent exclusion from the list of winners of the MacArthur Foundation’s so-called genius grants because I figured there had been a mix-up. But I’ve since reconciled myself to the fact that I was snubbed--again.

It’s society that will suffer, though. I was going to unselfishly use the grant money to explore such mysteries as:

* Why are Bluebird school buses orange?

* Why is there a Waterfront Cafe in Garden Grove?

* Why does the Long Beach neighborhood of Naples have canals while the original Naples does not?

* Why does the average paint job at One Day Paint and Body take three days?

* Why is it you only need to be 50 years old, not retired, to join the American Assn. of Retired Persons?

* And why do airlines advertise nonstop flights from L.A. to Honolulu?

miscelLAny: Norm Sklarewitz of West Hollywood saw, taped to a light pole in Beverly Hills, a notice by someone trying to sell a triplex house in West Hollywood, property on Mulholland Drive “ready to build,” a 65-foot yacht and a 1967 Rolls-Royce.

Throw in a few paperback novels, an old computer and a used baseball glove and you might have a pretty decent garage sale.

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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.