Frankly, Contestant Chose to Savor, Not Succeed

Controversy and sports seem synonymous these days, even in the world of competitive eating.

While Takeru Kobayashi was downing 53 3/4 frankfurters in 12 minutes to win the Nathan’s International Hot Dog Eating Contest on Tuesday, rival Jed Donahue of Huntington Beach was less spectacular. He wolfed down one -- yes, one -- the worst wurst finish. And this in a world competition. It was comparable to a pole vaulter in the Olympic Games topping out at 2 feet.

So what happened?

“I think he knew he wasn’t going to win,” said a spokesman for the International Federation of Competitive Eating. The spokesman said there were no plans to investigate.

Donahue, 33, who qualified for the event by downing 19 1/2 in a 12-minute regional trial earlier this year, offered no excuses, such as a bad tummy. But he could have been suffering from burnout (or, in this case, fry-out).

“It was the perfect hot dog,” Donahue said of his meal. “Instead of dunking it in water” as most competitors do, “I put mustard on it. I saw no reason to eat another.”

In fact, he maintained, eating just one “took a lot of discipline, being on national TV, with 10- to 15,000 fans in the crowd cheering, ‘Eat! Eat! Eat!’ ”

Forget about a career in competitive eating. Donahue should be a spokesman for Jenny Craig.

Such a deal: “Thank goodness,” said Ronald Lamphere of a laundromat’s sign (see photo). “I didn’t want to dry clean these bedsheets.”

Everyone’s in such a rush these days: The city of Santa Monica, points out Allan Weiss, is even trying to cram 10 hours into a nine-hour period (see photo).

Haunted house? Rita Zwern of Burbank saw a property description with an eerie selling line (see accompanying).

Bad connection: Deputy Eric Ogaz of the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department was eating lunch at home when he received a call from a Victorville woman who said she wanted to buy “an eight ball of meth.” Told she had the wrong number, she hung up. But Ogaz’s caller ID system captured her number. And he then drove over to the woman’s house and captured her too, on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs. Turns out that when she dialed the number, she was off by one digit.

“She was very surprised” to learn she had phoned a deputy to buy drugs, said spokesman Roxanne Walker. “Her exact words were that she had the ‘worst luck.’ ”

miscelLAny: Cyber-columnist Bob Patterson says one of his favorite summer songs is “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo,” by A Tribe Called Quest. Sample lyrics:

I said we gotta go

‘Cause I left my wallet

In El Segundo.

I’d rank it somewhere between “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and that favorite of the old Ken & Bob radio show, “I Left My Liver in the L.A. River.”