Without anything else to blame, I'm just going to blame the import store. Because that's where I was standing when everything went bad. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was one of those piss-poor days that I'd come to associate with Seattle. Gray skies with a faint mist in the air that some people called rain. I'd picked up some ice cream across the street and had waded through the crowded streets of "The Ave." Which is a ridiculous name, if you ask me. It's University Way, but they call it "The Ave." Really? It's obviously The Way, people. The whole place was crammed full of college students and homeless kids, filling the air with the smell of patchouli, pot, and stale urine.

The import store had big display windows out front showing their Asian im...

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