The Pike Place Market on a late Sunday afternoon is a pretty desperate place ... the weekend tourists are thinning out, drifting away as the metal curtains shut down on the fancy olive oil purveyors and handmade cheese joints. Even the French bakery is closed, and a tired Greek lady is selling a few last sad cups of lemonade to the remaining walkers. The panhandlers are squeezing hard to get just a few more nickles from the dwindling suckers, and they're getting aggressive, watching the lucrative weekend crowd dissolve. Lori and I were accosted by one this afternoon ... wasted, exhausted, he slurred his request for a handout and then fell in step with us after we politely demurred. "Hey porkchops, that look is all played out," he threatened. I'm used to being the target of insults like that on a daily basis, so it didn't offend me, but there was no doubt that this time we had a very unstable follower. We quietly ignored him, held hands and moved a bit swifter, crossing the street as he was still slobbering out his curses and shuffling behind on the other side.

Later we stopped for Manhattans at an outdoor cafe and laughed at the plight of the lowest castes, taking our revenge from a distance and serving it cold.