Off-the-couch humor:”In the tiny, crowded lobby of...

Off-the-couch humor:

“In the tiny, crowded lobby of the West Tower Pharmacy at Cedars-Sinai,” writes Marty Rauch of West L.A., “patients in various degrees of anxiety and discomfort awaited prescriptions. Harried, but still polite, the counter clerk called to a small man standing about three rows back and asked, ‘Have you been helped, sir?’ His answer--’My psychiatrist thinks so’--made everyone feel better.”

IF SHE WAS MAD BEFOREHAND . . . : Michael Sandoval photographed a car in Los Feliz whose owner’s mood no doubt matched her license plate when she noticed the Denver Boot hobbling one wheel.

THANK GOODNESS IT WASN’T THREE DAYS: Dialogue like this should make the movie “2 Days in the Valley” an enduring classic:

Kidnapper, to hostages in car: “I’m going to drop everyone in Pasadena.”

Hostage: “Then are you going to go back to Brooklyn?”

Entertainment Weekly, by the way, quipped that the movie’s title is a good description of rush hour here.

RELIGION HAS A ROLE IN L.A.’S CAR CULTURE: Spotted on the 405, a bumper sticker that said, “If you are heading in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns.”

DON’T BANK ON IT: John Nachreiner of Redondo Beach couldn’t resist taking a snapshot of a bank in L.A. that puts a price on free checking accounts.

WELCOME ABOARD! A billboard near downtown Denver asks: “Are we becoming L.A.?”

It’s supposedly an environmental statement. But we prefer to see it differently.

We’re tired of the secession rumors involving the San Fernando Valley, Venice, San Pedro, etc.--all these communities threatening to leave L.A. At last, an annexation rumor! We’d be happy to have a mile-high suburb.

WORSE THAN A BIG MAC ATTACK: Burger King has a new advertising campaign, geared toward college football with assorted quips about the various schools. BK was one of the sponsors of the USC-Cal football game on ABC-TV Saturday.

You can imagine how the burger company felt when one of the broadcasters mentioned that Cal quarterback Pat Barnes has been enjoying more success on the field this year because he stopped being a “junk-food junkie,” concentrated on “improved eating habits” and “cut out his visits to Burger King.”

FORTY CENTS IN THE VALLEY: A colleague of ours confided that his wife wanted to buy a piece of pizza and a Coke for their son at a mall in Northridge. She was 40 cents short. Rather than incur a $2 service fee at a nearby generic ATM, she fished the change out of the mall fountain.

Dreams do come true.

miscelLAny:

After Bob Dole called the Dodgers “Brooklyn” last month, the apparently disoriented team went on to lose 10 of its final 15 games--and may never find its way home.