Mangled Word Leads to a Close Shave With a Halloween Treat

You may recall I wrote about the mom who asked a neighbor if she kept firearms in the house and was shocked to be told, “Yes, one in every room.” (The neighbor thought the question was about fire alarms.) Anyway, that bit of confusion reminded Pat Wilson of Corona of an exchange she had on Halloween.

“I try to give the kids unusual stuff when they trick or treat,” Wilson explained. “This year we were startled when a neighbor dashed over screaming, ‘What in hell are you giving the kids? They’re going to get hurt!’

“I told him, ‘We’re giving them Halloween erasers to put on their pencils.’ He got very quiet. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I thought I heard them say Halloween razors.’ ”

Guide to adventurous dining: The specials du column today (see accompanying) include:

* A McDonald’s product whose current branding struck my colleague Jill Roberts as amusing. “Even if you’re not a mathematician,” she said, “it reads like Filet Zero Fish.” (Please, no jokes about truth in advertising.)

* A pie-maker who is evidently warning the allergy-prone that the products are baked in a paper mill.

* A dessert that Nora Lee Sun of Alhambra bought for her husband, who was understandably suspicious that “I might be trying to foist some health food on him bizarrely disguised as tempting chocolates and pastries.”

Dueling businesses? In New York City, George Gutman of Irvine noticed a window display that could prompt passersby to wonder if the guy in the window always remembers which type of item to use that hammer on (see photo).

Unclear on the concept: The police log of the Seal Beach Sun reported that several Los Alamitos residents complained about a “male subject with bleached blond hair who knocked on their door and said he’d win a scholarship if they said he was courteous. There were other subjects in the area doing the same, and being rude and confrontational.”

Martian moocher? Columnist David Allen of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin spotted a panhandler outside a Costco in Rancho Cucamonga with this plea on his cardboard sign: “Spaceship Out of Gas.” Perfectly understandable, Allen noted, inasmuch as “you don’t have to fill up a spaceship’s tank to know that gas prices are out of this world.”

miscelLAny: National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” show wished a happy birthday to Ozzy Osbourne on Friday, observing that he “has lived about 90 years and it’s only taken him 56 years to do it.”

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.