The Best Way to Get a Good Customer Rating Is to Leave No Alternative

Fishing for a compliment? How about an auto shop that seemed to insist on one in a note sent to Al Nesbit of Calabasas (see accompanying). A Lube Mob?

Unclear on the concept: Loan rates seem to be falling in the same way that gasoline prices are, according to a mailer received by Kit Barnard of Marina del Rey (see accompanying).

Unreal estate: Deborah Coates of L.A. saw a for-sale notice for an apartment building described as being three stories tall and “fully sprinkled” (see accompanying). With what? Coates said she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Pullet Surprises: Here are some bloopers from a college English class, sent in by Linda Birnbaum:

* The dreadful Blue Bonnet plague.

* Sea enemas in the pools.

* The Grand Crayon in Arizona.

More wondrous sights: While money may not grow on trees, Lyndon Dowdle of Garden Grove chanced upon a listing of some finned creatures that evidently swim from branch to branch (see accompanying).

Pullet Surprises (European Division): Elizabeth Johnston of Chatsworth spotted a French provincial faux pas (see accompanying).

Sacre bleu!

While we’re miscommunicating ... : One species of mondegreen, or misheard line, is the type that shows up in a closed caption on television. Tom Hynes points out that one of the classics appeared last year when ABC’s “World News Tonight” reported that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was recovering from surgery for an “enlarged prostitute.”

As opposed to an enlarged prostate.

Miscommunicating (cont.): NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, Greenspan’s wife, got in the last word: “He should be so lucky.”

Mondegreens of the season: “My late aunt, an elementary school teacher, always regaled us with the kindergartner who saw multiple Santas on a trip to the mall,” said Dr. Richard N. Snyder. The kid “asked her, ‘Which one is Santa and which one is Round John Virgin?’ ” No mother and child were around to clear up the confusion.

The heck you say: My colleague Bob Browning read in a local newspaper about an appearance by German-born organist Felix Hell at a La Habra Heights church. Added Browning: “I looked up ‘hell’ in a German dictionary, and it means ‘clear, bright, shining, brilliant.’ I guess ‘brilliant’ is a pretty good name for a performer.”

miscelLAny: You know that some writer in Northern California, learning of evidence that there was once water on Mars, is going to accuse L.A. of having stolen it. To which I say: Oh, go jump in the Grand Crayon.

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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.