A Masseuse to Rock the Town

The Seal Beach Sun reported that a woman complained that her residence “was shaking, possibly due to a helicopter. Police made checks and found the cause to be two women using a foot massager.”

Two women with big shoes to fill.

GIANT BUNNIES, PIRATES WITH TELESCOPES, ETC.: Some other police log items in the Sun’s year-end review:

* March 15: “Derogatory comments were written with plastic spoons on a resident’s lawn.”

* May 12: A man in a bunny suit with a net was dispatched to the area by radio station KROQ-FM to interview residents about Leisure World’s problems with wild rabbits.

* May 20: A man was observed “asleep on the sidewalk with a bicycle . . . on top of him.”

* June 1: Two men sitting with telescopes outside a cafe were believed to be “watching and attempting to steal ATM PIN numbers.”

* Aug. 13: A citizen called from “a Bank of America ATM to report that the machine would not stop spitting out money.”

Wonder how the guys with the telescopes felt about missing out on that last opportunity.

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK FOR YOU: Michael Kleven of Agua Dulce wrote The Times to demonstrate the faulty math used by the Social Security Administration in his case (see accompanying). “With people like that in charge, why should us old folks worry?” quipped Kleven.

HE WON’T BREATHE IN YOUR FACE: Alfred Tripodi of Dana Point noticed a personal ad that you might expect to see during flu season (see accompanying).

THE CUSTOMER ISN’T ALWAYS RIGHT, EVIDENTLY: In a San Bernardino mall, Mel Upp came upon an escape route for employees but wondered about the shoppers (see photo). Or was it an escape route from shoppers?

TALK ABOUT BEING DISCONNECTED: In “Anything Goes,” the new book by CNN yakker Larry King (co-written by Pat Piper), he recalls one of the many bizarre moments of the O.J. Simpson criminal case: the time that defense attorney Bob Shapiro’s cellular phone rang in court, prompting a harsh rebuke by Judge Lance Ito.

King admits the he was the caller, trying to arrange a dinner with Shapiro in a Beverly Hills restaurant.

But it gets better: When King made the call, the TV set in his condo was tuned to the Simpson trial.

He heard the phone ringing in the courtroom and watched as Shapiro apologized to Ito.

But wait--there’s more.

“The judge started saying something to Shapiro and that’s when I realized the ringing had stopped on the number I had just dialed,” King wrote. “And so I figured we had just been disconnected and I started dialing the number Shapiro had given me again when suddenly I understood what had just occurred. Let me put it this way . . . I had a bad feeling.”

King obviously was distracted by the thought of some of that fine Beverly Hills cuisine.

miscelLAny:

Chuck Shepherd’s “News of the Weird” cybercolumn says that psychic Jacqueline Stallone, mother of the actor, had declared in a preelection interview that George W. Bush would win “by 200 votes.” How did she know? Shepherd wrote: “Her dogs had told her telepathically.” Maybe CNN should hire the dogs to handle the election projections.

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.