Here’s the first Scrooge alert of the...

Here’s the first Scrooge alert of the holiday season:

Rose Desser, 97, legally blind and confined to a wheelchair, was napping in the passenger seat of her car in a Midtown parking lot when she was ticketed. The charge: Illegally occupying a disabled parking spot.

Desser said that her disabled-parking placard was visible and her folded-up wheelchair was in the back seat. Her live-in companion was shopping in a market.

Her family failed, by telephone and by letter, to get the ticket canceled.

Of course, when a reporter from The Times called, the case took a dramatic turn.

A Transportation Department spokesman said that the ticket would be canceled because, upon further checking, Desser did, indeed, possess a disabled parking permit.

But he refused to admit that a mistake was made, noting that the officer involved said no placard was visible. “We get many complaints about people illegally parking in disabled parking spots,” he said. “This is a big problem.”

Asked about the presence of the wheelchair in the back seat, the spokesman said: “I only have your word that it was there.”

You know what often happens when an individual or company comes under the scrutiny of the media--unexpected revelations begin emerging. So it is with Philippe’s, the sandwich shop near Union Station. Last week, Only in L.A. exposed the fact that Philippe’s had raised the price of its dime-a-cup coffee to 11 cents because of the new snack food tax.

Now comes a new bombshell. The eatery has quietly ended an 83-year ban and begun offering catsup, at least during the breakfast period. Founder Philippe Mattheu, being a Frenchman, wouldn’t allow the stuff on the premises.

“Richard did it,” said part-owner John Binder, referring to his brother. “I won’t take the blame. My grandfather must be rolling over in his grave. Richard said people wanted it with the corned beef hash we’ve started serving. I told him, ‘I don’t want anything to do with it.’ My mom doesn’t even know about it.”

Sacre bleu . Or should we say, sacre rouge ?

Several readers pounced on us for using “who’s” instead of “whose” twice the other day. “I hope I wasn’t your teacher,” wrote one anonymous critic, whose handwriting resembled that of our eighth-grade grammar instructor, Miss Teague. We still think we deserved a B in her class.

If “Shark Repellent,” a product sold by a Long Beach company, fails to live up to its name, there is some consolation for the user. Or the user’s next-of-kin.

miscelLAny:

Thomas Bros. map guides contain some fictitious streets so that the company can prove a copyright infringement against anyone illegally reproducing its work. To insure that drivers are not confused, the mythical avenues are generally shown on the outskirts of a neighborhood, run only a block, and are indicated with broken lines (as though under construction). Thomas Bros. calls them “map traps.”