La-La Land Denizens’ Foibles No Act

Folks in other parts of the country like to poke fun at Southern Californians, but we do have unique problems out here.

For instance, a resident wrote to the “Your Two Cents Worth” column of the Palisadian-Post newspaper: “I have a complaint about my postal service. I have two names -- a legal name and an acting name. Periodically, mail coming to me under my acting name is returned to the sender, even though both names are on the mailbox.”

Not the kind of complaint you’d hear from a resident of Dubuque.

More postal fun: In Cypress, Deborah Pikul found a pair of dueling signs indicating a clerk was at an address unknown (see photo).

Food for thought: Elizabeth Johnston of Granada Hills commented that a missing animal notice under an embellished “STOP” sign “made me worry about the fate of the poor cat” (see photo). She added: “Maybe the ‘STOP’ sign was directed at local coyotes.”

A little sensitivity, please: Speaking of food, the banner at the pig races at the Orange County Fair said, “Ralphs Brings Home the Bacon.” Reminds me of the time that Western Exterminator sponsored the Bug Fair at the L.A. County Natural History Museum.

Fast track: In Cypress, Bruce Thompson spotted a tutoring business that, he figures, caters to quick learners (see photo).

Leaving ‘em speechless: I’m just back from San Luis Obispo, where I served as an instructor at the California Scholastic Press Assn. workshop at Cal Poly.

One of the high school students came up to me during a feature writing exercise and said she couldn’t think of what to write about the person she’d interviewed. “Who was that?” I asked, wondering who the dullard was. “You,” she responded. And she was one of the better writers.

Cell prisoner: I took a train to the workshop, a mode of travel I hadn’t used in years. And I was chagrined to notice a change in rail travel: passengers blabbing on their cellphones.

Of course, the gizmos did provide a few amusing moments. One passenger, engrossed in a conversation on her cell when the train arrived at a stop, suddenly jumped up and yelled, “Is this Ventura? Is this Ventura?” No one answered and the last I saw of her she was sprinting down the aisle, phone still glued to her ear. She may have wound up in Oxnard for all I know.

And then there was the woman who received a call from her husband, informing her that he had received a traffic ticket. The woman, riding with her young son, sighed and told her husband he’d have to attend traffic school. Whereupon her son shouted for all us fellow riders to hear: “Daddy has to go to driving school? He already went to driving school!”

miscelLAny: One of the campaign slogans of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides is: “A Leader, Not an Actor.”

Even Democrats might disagree with the implication that Arnold Schwarzenegger was an actor.