It’s a Hospital in a Big Hurry

Further proof that we live in a hurry-up society: In its newsletter, St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica announced plans for an Impatient Pavilion (see accompanying).

HANG UP: “The Case of the Snort in the Night “ involved a Westside woman who was pressing charges against a man for his late-night phone calls to her--calls in which he made no sounds other than pig-like snorts. The calls were traced to the man’s phone.

But things aren’t always what they seem in L.A., as Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Vezzani wrote in the L.A. Daily Journal in his ongoing series of strange legal goings-on.

A bit of investigation determined that prior to the complaint, the defendant, a pool maintenance man, had himself been receiving middle-of-the-night phone calls from a condo manager with a never-ending list of complaints. The pool man’s wife had warned the condo manager not to call.

Then, the condo manager called late one night, reached no one and left a phone number on the message machine. The pool man’s enraged wife later dialed the number and put the phone next to her sleeping husband’s face. He was a loud snorer. The wife employed this tactic for several evenings without telling her husband.

But here’s the twist. The condo manager had given the other woman’s phone number. Why? It wasn’t clear. But the other woman had sued the condo manager over another matter.

“The Case of the Snort in the Night” was dismissed.

MYSTERY DISH: Robert Wilkman of Sierra Madre wondered if the unusual list of ingredients for some hot dogs was an example of truth in labeling (see accompanying).

SCHOOL PRESSURES ARE REALLY GETTING OUT OF HAND: A student who requested a transcript of grades from a community college showed me the extremely personal return letter (see accompanying). “I guess the school knew I was one of the older students (52) and made a special letter to fit me,” my correspondent said.

LICENSE PLAINTS: In South Pasadena, the city fighting against the incursion of the Long Beach Freeway, Whitney Barrick noticed a kind of mobile billboard: a license plate that said NO710.

I checked the DMV’s Web site (www.plates.ca.gov) and couldn’t find any other similar attacks on local roadways, apart from the general NOFRWYS.

I was dismayed to see that two of my favorites, HATE405 and GDDM405, are no longer listed.

miscelLAny:

When Mai Nguyen, owner of Au Lac Gourmet Vegetarian Restaurant in Fountain Valley, notices a table of new customers, she asks how they heard about her eatery. A restaurant review, a friend, the Yellow Pages, the Internet? But when she asked one patron the other day, she learned of another source. “My new car recommended you,” he said.

He explained that after he had left the dealership that day, he had felt like celebrating. So he instructed his car’s navigational system to search its digital map and find a nearby restaurant.

I hope Nguyen told the patron to thank his car.

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.