Deputy makes unusual traffic stop -- kiddie style

Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies at the Malibu/Lost Hills station answered a complaint about a woman who was sitting in a child’s shopping cart outside a supermarket, smoking a cigarette and refusing to leave.

The officers tried to talk her into getting out of the cart, but she refused.

Finally, Deputy Tom Osteen ended the standoff. Osteen “mustered up all the command presence he developed while on training,” reported the Star News, a Sheriff’s Department publication, “and said, in a deep authoritative manner, ‘OK, ma’am ... step out of the vehicle.’ ”

Unclear on the concept: Sue Crose of Redondo Beach noticed a listing for a South Pasadena house that says “great view of harbor.” Maybe it was supposed to say “great view of Harbor Freeway,” but even that would be a stretch (see accompanying).

Unclear on the concept (II): Lance Maillis saw an ad from an auto garage that seems to think that custom wheels require extra oil (see accompanying).

Ooh la la: “Just so you don’t think we’re stodgy up here in Santa Barbara,” wrote Ron Freese, “get a load of the upcoming event at the Old Mission” (see accompanying).

Food for the brain? Not the stuff that Suzanne Moore of Long Beach spotted (see accompanying).

Turkey trot: Shopping tensions are erupting even in the supermarket aisles.

A reader of the Palisadian-Post wrote that his mother was doing her Thanksgiving shopping when “a short, bald white male, around 60 to 65 years old, suddenly grabbed the turkey out of her cart and said, ‘I saw first.’

“Mom thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. She ran after him to the front of the market screaming, telling him she’d call the police. He said, ‘Call them, I don’t care.’ The manager let him buy the turkey and gave my mom $10 off on another one.” The reader added: “My mom is 74, and no one cared enough to help her.... I would have grabbed that turkey out of his hands and decked him. What is wrong with this society?”

Have the cops put out some feelers? Six live lobsters disappeared from a saltwater tank in the garage of a Carlsbad residence, the Coast News said. A theft? Or a mass escape?

miscelLAny: The most memorable command from a law enforcement officer that I can remember was uttered years ago by the U.S. marshal who rearrested Southland spy Christopher Boyce. Boyce, whose case was chronicled in the book and movie “The Falcon and the Snowman,” had escaped from prison but was spotted in a fast-food eatery’s parking lot. The marshal, with gun drawn, told Boyce: “Drop that hamburger.”

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., L.A. 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.