Incident Raises the Hackles of a Mission Viejo Resident

In the you-think-you-have-problems category, the police log of the Saddleback Valley News carried a “disturbance” complaint from a Mission Viejo resident concerning “a dog-grooming truck next door [that] is releasing hair onto the [resident’s] property.”

Speaking of getting hot: The other day, I printed Dan Shepard’s photo of a sign at a New Zealand hydrothermal area that hissed: “Danger: Thin Ground.”

Well, Kathy Musial of Pasadena was reminded of her own favorite warning in New Zealand, in front of another boiling pool (see photo).

How effective was the litter notice? “Management told me they’ve never had to enforce it,” Musial said.

Unclear on the concept: Alex May of Laguna Niguel spotted a sign-maker’s shop in Oregon and “can’t imagine them getting much business from this example” (see photo).

Your tax dollars at work: Si Frumkin of Studio City came upon a ruling by the IRS (see accompanying) that prompted him to write: “Now I can sleep again! No more sleepless nights tossing and turning, worrying that I had been celebrating my birthday on the wrong day!”

The postman only meows once: An item here about strange noises at the front door reminded Tricia Nickerson of Lake Forest about the time she had just moved to a new neighborhood and her doorbell kept ringing.

“No one was ever there,” she said. “I was a stay-at-home mom and this began to scare me. I heard the bell ring, called my neighbor across the street who said all she could see on my porch was my cat, standing up pushing the bell with his paw.” Nickerson continued: “Did I mention that he weighed 20 pounds and was huge?”

Recall fever? Columnist David Allen of the Inland Valley Bulletin notes that a sign in front of an empty building in Montclair promises a “mayor” renovation.

So many jangled nerves! A caller to police in Mission Viejo reported “a large gathering of about 40 people in the parking lot of a Starbucks who were arguing and ... looked like they were getting ready to fight,” the Saddleback Valley News said.

Was it Johnny Mountain or Dallas Raines? You can always depend on closed-captioned TV for some colorful errors. Ralph Shaffer was tuned to a KABC-TV newscast when he read about an EBay auction of a “meteorologist” that had fallen to Earth.

miscelLAny: It sounds like the stuff of a Hitchcock movie. Al Nesbit, being a man, couldn’t help but notice a singles’ ad in which a woman referred to herself as a “professional widow.”

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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.