Sex/Lake City Way/Sun Jan 30/2:00 am: A Sandpoint man entered a local strip joint at around 1:00 am. After buying an expensive cup of Coke, he was offered a very "personal dance" by two beautiful women. He accepted the double offer, and they began to perform their sexually arousing moves on him. After 40 minutes passed, the erotic dancers stopped and told the Sandpoint man, who was delirious with pleasure, that he owed them $600! (A lap dance is on average $20 per song; double that for two dancers.) He disputed the price with the girls, claiming all he had was $100, and that was all he was going to pay! He gave them the money, and exited the club with a supercilious strut. But while heading to his parked car, he was suddenly struck by something hard on the back of his head. He fell to the ground, screaming in pain; before he could make sense of what had just happened, a man started kicking him in the face, back, and ribs. More shadows appeared and began kicking him hard. Desperately, slowly, with stars swirling around in his pounding head, he managed to get to his car and escape his attackers.

The injured Sandpoint man drove to a nearby Denny's and called the police, but when they arrived they couldn't find him. "He just left," explained a waitress. Twenty minutes later, he called again; he was at Harborview Medical Center, where a doctor was treating his wounds. When the cops arrived at the emergency room, they listened to his pathetic story and took photographs of his injuries: cuts on his forehead, an inflamed right cheek, a swollen eye, a sore thumb, a bruised back, and abrasions on his right palm and the back of his left hand. The bouncers who pounded him are still at large.

Pepperoni/Capitol Hill/Thurs Feb 3/5:30 pm: A man waved down a police car that was cruising Broadway. The police officer stopped, rolled down his window, and was told this story by the frenzied citizen: The man had bought a pepperoni stick at the grocery store a block down the street (he showed the officer the pepperoni stick), but when he had taken a bite from it, he discovered the damn thing was stale! He had returned to the store and told the storekeeper (a 65-year-old man) that he wanted a refund for the stale pepperoni. Without saying a word, the jaded storekeeper had picked up a chair and chased the customer out of the store and down the block. Having heard the consumer's point of view, the officer walked to the store to hear the retailer's version. The old man admitted that the customer had made him mad with all his talk about stale pepperoni, but said he hadn't chased him with a chair. The officer then asked people at a nearby coffee stand if they had seen a young man with a pepperoni stick being chased by an old man with a chair, but none had witnessed this amazing sight. Police Beat is sad to inform readers that it is highly unlikely this young man got to enjoy the pleasures of a fresh pepperoni stick that day.

Eggs/Queen Anne/Tues Feb 8/8:53 pm: A young woman in a gray sweatshirt walked into a Blockbuster Video on Queen Anne and selected two videos. But when she offered a membership card for the rentals, the store manager flatly rejected it because it was under her mother's name and not her own. The young woman cursed at the intractable store manager, but the manager was unmoved by her arrows and spears of mean-spirited words. The woman then did a most amazing thing: She stormed out of the store, returned after a few seconds, and fired a rapid series of fresh eggs against the north- facing window of the video store. The store manager, who watched as his windows were yellowed and slimed by this hysterical consumer, happily gave the cops her mother's membership information.