C.J.: When it comes to countertops, Cheryl Tiegs could almost cry

Super model Cheryl Tiegs was a bit flustered about nearly being brought to tears by the kindness of folks responsible for the stonework going on in her Beverly Hills, Calif., home.

The Minnesota native is the national spokesperson for Eden Prairie-based Cambria, a green advocate now installing quartz surfaces in Tiegs' California home.

"My house is now chaotic and I don't do well with chaos. I like it calm. I like serene," Tiegs told me over lunch Friday at Spoonriver with her significant other, Dan Buettner, the world explorer. "It's not that way in my house now. Cambria has put me up in a motel while they are redoing several rooms in my house, which is, first of all, very generous. As I was telling the story yesterday, I burst into tears. It touched me so much that as a company they would care so much."

I think Tiegs forgets who she is sometimes, while Minnesotans don't. "That's what you do with family, that's what you do with friends," she said. "That's the way I like to work with people. It's probably one of the most endearing, special relationships I've ever had with a company."

Buettner teased Tiegs that Cambria didn't just put her up at a hotel; it was a really nice hotel -- of her choosing.

To see my video of Cheryl and Dan, go to www.

startribune.com/cj.

The language used by K Jay, Kevin Craft and filmmaker Asa Thibodaux, in co-starring roles, merits a strong parental warning.

However, Thibodaux said, the 3-week-old spoof has already attracted more than a half-million Web hits. When asked if there is a version that's not as naughty, Thibodaux laughed and said, "That's funny. Not yet. We have people who say, You actually made me want to go get a Whopper. You know the crazy part, people in corporate America [have tuned into it]. My fiancée, Stacey, and I Googled it the other day. We sat there for an hour and, if you type in 'Whopper freakout ghetto,' there were 20 something pages and people were leaving comments saying, I had my entire floor laughing. It's not for the work environment, but we were playing it anyway."

And then Thibodaux apologetically noted, "There's a lot of cursing on it." Yes, that's hard to miss.

Thibodaux said he curses "a little bit, but I wrote [my lines] beforehand." K Jay and Craft were not afforded that option. "I said, 'Hey, I'm doing this now; if you want to be a part of it, come on.' So they were rushing," Thibodaux said.

Craft -- "Hey, I'm the guy with the braids, the whiney one" -- said he had "no idea" how Burger King feels about the spoof. "They haven't contacted youtube.com and said take it down or anything. People [commenting on it] say Burger King's got to be happy."

H.C. rat race The rat race over at Hennepin County Government Center has more participants than desired.

"Rat? Racy?" said Carolyn Marinan, of Hennepin County public affairs. "I'll bet you're talking about the mice."

Marinan, who answered one of my phone calls with "No mice here," said: "I have not seen a mouse myself, but I understand they're out there."

One tipster was kind of surprised that the rodents were given a holiday reprieve, so to speak, as the pest control initiative was delayed.

They were not trying to fatten them up, Judy Hollander, Hennepin County director of property services, said last week. "It would just seem like an impossible situation," she added. "We didn't want to interfere with all the holiday parties and the food that people bring in in December. We thought we'd be more successful if we waited."

"Once we had a bat in our plants," Marinan said. "We did not kill the bat; we set it free with the help of property service staffers. But we got rid of the ficus plants."

Since she's sharing, a rat was recently observed in a second floor women's restroom at the Strib. There was talk of giving the rodent a name (that involved no initials).

Note to the U, as it makes national news about creating a beating rat heart in a jar: That population doesn't need help.