A gray, overcast Friday downtown--it would have...

A gray, overcast Friday downtown--it would have been a bad day for a Lakers championship parade, anyway.

Before she went on vacation, Lori Palmer filled out a form to have the Hollywood post office hold her mail.

She returned home a week later and was pleased to find no mail piled up at her house. But when she went to the post office, there was nothing for her there either.

It turns out that delivery to her house never ceased. Fortunately, a friend had dropped by and picked up the mail.

As Palmer leafed through the letters, she found a familiar piece of paper that had been mailed to her: The hold-the-mail form.

The bad news: An invasion of ants was believed to have knocked out two ATM machines at a bank in Sherman Oaks on Friday.

The good news: They didn’t carry away any money.

Perhaps because of the reputation of Caltech students for high jinks, President Bush’s appearance at the graduation ceremonies there Friday was the first by a Chief Executive since William Howard Taft stopped by in 1911.

Taft seemed calm that day despite the fact that his car had been followed for more than a mile by “a large Nubian ostrich from the Cawston farm� in Pasadena. He spoke for five minutes at the school, then called Throop Polytechnic, congratulating the students “on their high standing and holding out promise of an earnest life.�

A reporter for the good Republican L.A. Times said of the visit of the Republican leader: “All the people, without regard to political beliefs or differences, joined in making the President feel that he is well-beloved in California of the South.�

While we’re on the subject, Dale Cooper found a street sign in West L.A. (see photo) that you wouldn’t expect to see in California of the South.

The handy hints mailed out to DWP customers in the 10-page booklet, “Your Water--How Good Is It?� are no doubt appreciated, even though the publication’s cost does, of course, increase the agency’s water bills.

Our favorite tip:

“Want to improve the taste of the tap water you drink? Try chilling the water by putting it in a container in the refrigerator.�

So that’s how you chill things!

We must add, however, that Gwyn Dilday of West L.A. was a bit mystified by a statement in the pamphlet that a “biomonitor� tests the purity of the DWP’s water.

What, you may ask, is a biomonitor?

Explains the DWP: “We continuously monitor surface waters with an innovative early-warning system using fish.�

That’s enough. We don’t want to hear any more.

miscelLAny:

More than 15,000 men crowded themselves into a park in Long Beach in 1928 to claim the title, “World’s Largest Men’s Bible Class,� edging out a slightly smaller group in Kansas City, Mo.