Contestants Are Flush With Excitement

What a week this is, with all the playoffs -- right, fans? Oh, I’m not talking about the Angels and Dodgers, who flopped in their series openers.

No, I mean the Fluidmaster Flushoff, a competition between six vocalists to see who can best replicate the sound of a draining toilet.

At least six are scheduled to show up today at the San Juan Capistrano headquarters of Fluidmaster, proud maker of toilet-repair kits.

“We’re pretty sure no one is pulling our leg,” said spokeswoman Gretchen Kurz. “Sometimes people will say they’re going to be there [at the finals] and not show.” Difficult to imagine anyone failing to take a flushoff seriously.

Anyway, the finalists include a 15-year-old from Fresno, two entrants from Simi Valley (congratulations, Simi, on being the only city to send more than one toilet imitator!) and a comic from Pensacola, Fla. (comics know all about bathroom humor).

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SigAlert of the Month: The police blotter of the Saddleback Valley News recently carried this complaint out of Laguna Hills: “Reported at Oso Parkway and Cabot Road at 6:07 a.m.: A horse and a goat have wandered into the intersection.”

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I’ve heard of bringing the teacher an apple ... : But an article found by Elaine Jeppesen of San Jacinto sounded as though the teacher would be giving students something for their martinis (see accompanying). (It was supposed to say an “olive-curing” class.)

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“Duh!” Award winner: Elma Denton of Duarte received some pretty common-sensical advice about cleaning an overhead appliance (see accompanying).

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Unreal estate: Those who know how difficult it is to remove mold from a house might hesitate bidding on the property spotted by Eileen Roe of Littlerock (see accompanying).

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Silence of the lanes: In an interview in AARP magazine, actor Anthony Hopkins described being in a huge traffic jam on Pacific Coast Highway after leaving his home in Malibu:

“I was looking in the rearview mirror and this man was banging the wheel and blowing his horn. You’re not going to get the traffic to move that way. If you’re stuck, turn on the radio, look at the weather, just accept it.” Wonder what the honking driver would have done if Hopkins had gotten out of his car and given him the old Hannibal-Lecter-piercing-eyes look?

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miscelLAny: Several hundred contestants will huff and puff in the Stair Climb to the Top, a race up 75 flights of stairs in the US Bank Tower (the former Library Tower) on Friday and Saturday. That’s 1,500 steps.

Some people will do anything to avoid elevator music.