Less common sense than a crash-test dummy:College...

Less common sense than a crash-test dummy:

College instructor Gary Bolen was driving in Los Feliz when he “approached an intersection at which there was an obviously stalled and temporarily abandoned car in the right-turn lane (hood raised, flashers on, devoid of people, etc.).”

What was strange about the scene was that there was “a car behind the stalled one,” Bolen said. “And the male driver was alternately leaning on his horn, yelling out his window and pounding on the steering wheel in a doomed effort to get a disabled and driverless car to move.”

But that’s not all: Bolen noticed that the license plate holder on the irate man’s car proclaimed him to be a member of Mensa, the high-IQ organization.

We bet the guy never took auto shop in school.

L.A. INSULT OF THE WEEK: Rocker Ozzy Osbourne’s bulldog recently underwent some surgery on his mug. The hound, which had apparently been scratching its face too much, required the procedure for health reasons, “not reasons of vanity,” the New York Daily News said. The newspaper added: “After all, Osbourne got the operation done in England, not L.A.”

VERY P.C. (POLITICALLY COCKROACH): A food critic inadvertently eats a cockroach that has jumped onto his fork during a scene in the movie “Addicted to Love.” But don’t worry about the little guy (the insect). USA Today reports that the cockroach, after being “temporarily gassed with carbon dioxide,” was freed. “No animals were harmed,” director Griffin Dunne said. Sure, the cockroach survived--physically. But what about its mental state?

ANOTHER LANDMARK DISAPPEARS: Peter Lee of L.A. writes to relay the sad news that the parking lot sign with cryptic numbers “has recently, unceremoniously been replaced” at the County Arboretum in Arcadia.

Lee figures the county finally got around to removing it after this column published his photo of the sign--along with the solution to the puzzle--last year.

You may recall Lee’s story that the sign maker had originally asked a county Public Works office manager “to count the number of letters that would be needed, possibly for billing purposes.” The manager “put the counts next to the text,” Lee said. “And, for some reason, that’s how they were put on the sign.”

(OK--we’ll pause here to let you count for yourself, O ye of little faith.)

The resourceful sign maker, by the way, transformed “Public Works” into one word in order to fit in the number on that line.

WHEN YOU ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY HAVE TO BE THERE IN A DAY OR TWO: Norm Sklarewitz of West Hollywood, a frequent Federal Express customer, received a note from the company announcing its new rates and terms for international shipments. The Fed Ex notice arrived in a letter in the mail.

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The coming movie, “Apt Pupil,” has received a bit of notoriety, owing to the lawsuit filed by the parents of a 14-year-old movie extra who say he was filmed in a nude scene without their permission. But “Apt Pupil” is apparently not widely known yet. Jack Herman heard a local TV anchorman call it “Apartment Pupil.” A bit of trouble with the old TelePrompTer, perhaps?