Columnist Susan Snyder: Mall for one at opening

Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2002 | 8:19 a.m.

It's Election Day.

And like most red-blooded, free-thinking Americans I'm going to ignore it.

Instead we're going to talk about shellfish.

It will be difficult to pass through the fine-jewelry department of Nordstrom at Fashion Show mall without craving lobster.

Granted, I have about as much chance of walking out of there with lobster as I do emeralds. But during last Tuesday's gala, which attracted 10 times more media representatives than the statewide arts council public forum the following night, there was lobster aplenty.

Ravioli delighted those in the juniors' department, waiters with trays of cocktails cruised women's shoes, and for those who wanted to skip straight to the important stuff there was an open bar next to the first-floor escalator.

For people like me they need only to open the doors and draw us into the clammy embrace of calfskin. But a bar near ladies' footwear could be a definite boon to the whole shopping experience for many a surly spouse.

I just hope no one dropped any of those goat-cheese lollipops on anything expensive, which would pretty much include everything except what the journalists were wearing.

And though we no longer can marvel at a pyramid of chocolates in the children's department, the colorful ceramic tiles created by local children will remain for shoppers to admire.

They are embedded in the floor throughout the kids' department and were made in March to raise money for the Lied Discovery Children's Museum, Amy Jones, Nordstrom spokeswoman, said.

There are 200, and each includes the artist's first name and age. The project raised $15,000 for the museum, Jones said, and each child made an exact copy to replace any that break. Pretty unshellfish little kids.

Sharing evidently was a problem for a visitor from Chicago last week. The man has been making waves with local health department officials over an affliction involving a parasite named for a small, side-winding variety of shellfish.

The man, who freely gave us his name but whose name is being withheld because some people need to be protected from themselves, swears a Strip motel's bedsheets left him infected with pthirus pubis -- also known as pubic lice and commonly called "crabs."

The man suspects he contracted the little stowaways while staying in a motel here Oct. 23. We're withholding the name of the motel because Lon Empey, Clark County Health District environmental health supervisor, said his investigators inspected the place Wednesday and found nothing amiss.

But Empey didn't expect them to turn up anything because pthirus pubis survive fewer than 24 hours without a human host. Infection through sheets is remotely possible, but highly unlikely.

"I've never seen it in all my (22) years in this business," Empey said.

The incubation period is three to 14 days, which means it typically takes at least three days before the telltale itching starts, the health official added.

The tourist says it started the morning after his first -- and only -- night in that motel. It seems he is suffering from a poor diagnosis or a lousy alibi.

Next time maybe he should settle for a souvenir T-shirt.