Financial Diagnosis Gives Awestruck Patient Healthy Prognosis
Is you-know-what, that hot place down below, about to freeze over? Sara Oldberg of Tujunga has been wondering ever since “a check for $82 arrived in my mail for an UNsolicited, UNexpected, and UNexplained refund from my HMO.” (Editing -- and delight -- hers.)
Visitors raiding your fridge: Don’t you find it irritating?
Well, imagine the feelings of the Laguna Beach resident who, according to the News-Post crime log, “called police about a snake under her refrigerator.”
In other animal news ... : Fred Barker of Burbank noticed an item about a suspect who chose a strange mode of transportation (see accompanying).
No discrimination: Old fuddy-duddy standards of morality have changed in this country, thank goodness, so I think it’s fine that a Long Beach gift shop would include unwed moms in its Mother’s Day advertising (see photo).
Letter imperfect: Betty Barnett of Pomona chanced upon one correction in an area newspaper that she is willing to forgive -- this one time (see accompanying).
It’s a strange world: The Dana Point News’ crime log reported that a caller said “ ‘a man came into the flower store crawling around on his hands and knees saying someone was chasing him and asking customers for a ride. Then the man walked out of the store.’ ”
One man’s junk is ... : I’ve always thought there was something artistic about Disneyland’s janitors, the way they swoop in ballet-like to clean up the trash of visitors almost before it touches the ground.
Apparently the job can be artful in other ways, as is illustrated by the case of George Blakely, a sweeper there during the 1970s while an undergrad at Cal State Fullerton.
“During my entrance review to be admitted into the graduate design program, a highly competitive process,” Blakely told the school’s Titan magazine, “I showed the faculty committee seven pieces of trash that I had swept from the ground at Disneyland, and was admitted into the program.
“Later in 1977 I had a one-person exhibit in the Art Department’s gallery, where I displayed hundreds of pieces of trash ... all cast-away Polaroids, byproducts of a popular picture-making method of those days [known as] Polaroid peel-offs, the negative portion of the Polaroid.... “
Just think -- you may have contributed to an art project, if you’re a litterbug.
miscelLAny: The Seal Beach Sun’s police log said “a caller reported a seal the size of an 8-year-old” on the sand -- the only difference being it wasn’t carrying a GameBoy.
Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083; by fax at (213) 237-4712; by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles 90012; and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.