Unusual Items Will Be Flying Off the Shelves at Space and Aviation Auction

One of the items on the block in this weekend’s Space and Aviation Memorabilia Auction in Santa Monica is an “ejection seat ... complete with seat belt and power cables. Excellent overall condition.”

Just the thing to activate when you’re trapped in a SigAlert on the San Diego Freeway!

Spacey stuff (cont.): Other unusual collectibles to be auctioned at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying include:

* A Russian-made “wooden ashtray studded with 10 rifle/machine gun shells and an airplane made from bullets” (see photo). Nobody will dare tell you to stop smoking if they see you using this!

* “Early Space Food Lot,” a decades-old package of “freeze-dried apricot juice with pulp, freeze-dried yogurt, dehydrated vegetable soup and a tube (leaking) of meat spread.” I think I have one of those tubes in my refrigerator.

Just a pedicure, thanks: Rosemary LeForte of Huntington Beach noticed an ad from a nail salon that seems to dabble in birth control (see accompanying).

Handy tips: Joanne Austin of Camarillo quipped that “it was difficult to put together this shelving unit -- I couldn’t seem to find the correct tools” (see accompanying).

Hmmm. I wonder if I was using that “screwdriver” when I broke the family toilet I was attempting to fix. All I know is my wife would have strapped me into an ejection seat if she’d had one handy.

Stupid criminal tricks: An LAPD officer, sipping a latte (with no doughnut) in a coffee shop, saw a car swerving down the street and took off in pursuit.

Meanwhile, the driver struck a parked car and continued down the street, leaving a trail of debris.

The officer followed the debris to a cul-de-sac, where he found the driver passed out at the wheel, with a can of beer in his hand, reported the Thin Blue Line, a police union newspaper.

Photos of the driver were taken to mark the occasion and then he was given a ride to jail. Oh, yes, what was the driver’s pillow when he was found? A 12-pack of beer.

miscelLAny: In the spirit of Halloween, the Art Deco Society of L.A. will conduct its 19th annual walking tour at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Saturday afternoon.

The society’s Suzanne Cooper promises to dig up the dirt on such stars as Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks and such mysteries as the cemetery’s Atlas rocket grave site (see photo).

A shame that the space auction and the rocket grave briefing have to overlap.

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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.