Called Loan. In Merced, Calif., Burton Idas Dunahoo, 42, rented a screw driver for $1 at a service station, was caught using it to pry open the money box on a soft-drink machine, angrily demanded his money back as police hustled him off to jail.

Con Game. In Salt Lake City. Brigham Krause complained to the embarrassed County Commission that the 700-by-50-ft. piece of tax-delinquent property he had bought for $100 turned out to be a section of a county roadway.

The Hard Sell. In Waco, Texas, less than two weeks after the Clifton-Simpson, Inc. furniture store advertised a "Sink or Sell'' sale, a two-inch downpour caved in the roof, did some $50,000 damage.

Language of Love. In Milwaukee. Mrs. Jeanne K. Devine explained why she had handed out $4,000 in worthless checks, using her ex-husband's name: she hoped that he would be lured back to Milwaukee where she could force him to support their child.

The Desperate Hours. In Los Angeles after he had broken into the South End Poultry Market, Frank Spieker, 30, made himself a jelly sandwich, dropped the jelly, slipped on it, knocked himself out, was found by Manager Joe Bennish and revived by police.

Crime Wave. In Kansas City, Mo., Glenn Bernard Mitchell, 32, was sentenced to 10-to-21 years in prison for walking into the Bon-Ton Beauty Salon, receiving a cold-wave permanent, then stealing $38 at gunpoint and fleeing without paying for the hairdo.

Shape Up. In Los Angeles, Model Bernice Rye, 30, won a divorce after testifying that Husband Ernest Rye, 41, entertained friends by comparing her figure to photographs of his former wife in shorts or bathing suit.

Battle Plan. In Riccarton, N.Z., burglars broke into a hardware store and stole acetylene gas and oxygen cylinders, broke into another and stole a blowtorch, then broke into a branch of the Bank of New South Wales, cut open the safe, stole $12,180.

Higher Law. In San Pedro, Calif., after he shot and seriously wounded Robert Gant in a quarrel over a 50-c- debt, Army Sergeant Frederic W. West, 24, explained loftily to police: "I didn't shoot him for the 50-c- he owed me, but for the principle of the thing."

Prescience. In San Antonio, after predicting local thunderstorms, Weather Forecaster Milton Rudd went atop the weather station to check instrument readings, was knocked flat by a bolt of lightning.

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