Motorist Should Get a Clue About the Dangers of Parking at a Mall Topless
Details, details. Mike Bird of Calabasas saw a police log item about the theft of a cell phone from a sports car in a mall parking lot. The surprising thing is that the doors to the car were locked. Only problem was that the top was down.
I beg your pardon! Donald Bentley of La Puente was surprised to receive a dire warning about his health from a magazine (see accompanying).
Speaking of sick: John Hodgkinson found a health-minded turkey roaster (see accompanying).
I guess it’s tough to find a good baby-sitter ... : Ellen Burr of L.A. noticed a job posting by a family that had collected endorsements for their kid (see accompanying).
True or false: I checked out a couple of wild rumors I’d heard with the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, one of the foremost investigators of urban folk tales.
The first rumor was that a closed caption for ABC’s “World News Tonight” announced that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was being treated “for an enlarged prostitute.” The society’s Snopes.com Web site found that the Washington Post’s “Reliable Source” column had confirmed the item with apologetic ABC, which, of course, had meant to say “prostate.”
The second item turned out to be a spoof by KFI-AM (640) talk show host Phil Hendrie. That was the report that a Corona man was suing the Department of Homeland Security for emotional distress. The poor fellow had allegedly panicked after a government warning and duct-taped his privates so he would be able to “reproduce and populate the Earth after a biological attack.” Phil’s a pill.
Department of Redundancy Dept.: Jolene Collins of Tujunga was unimpressed with a jewelry store’s sales claim, since it was, after all, trying to unload everything in the joint (see photo).
Tiptoeing along: After seeing the blurb here about a restaurant that warned that non-customers’ cars would be “toad,” Robert Sharp of South Pasadena wrote: “On Highway 99 near Fresno, I saw a sign in the back window of a small Honda being pulled along by a large recreational vehicle that stated: ‘I go where I’m towed to.’ ”
Innovative Car Pool Schemes Dept.: The Seal Beach Sun said that police observed a truck with “several men covering themselves with sheets and blankets in the truck bed,” checked it out and discovered that it was stolen. Wonder what made them suspicious?
miscelLAny: Don’t know if you caught actor (and Red Sox fan) Ben Affleck at Edison Field with girlfriend Jennifer Lopez for an Anaheim-Boston game. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Tom FitzGerald caught comic Conan O’Brien saying afterward, “The stadium was packed because it was ‘J. Lo’s Ex-Husbands Day.’ ”
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.