Stefan sez: "Arcata is a small, funky Northern California college town. Its laid-back style, liberal politics, and location on Route 101 makes it an attractive way station (or permenant home) for a wide variety of (ahem) colorful characters.
"The local weekly paper, the Arcata Eye, publishes an arch, sometimes hilarious, sometimes hair-raising police blotter column, available on its web site and now as a book!"
8:10 p.m. Malloy and Reed (you’'re too young to remember them) would’'ve described the behavior of the woman at a Uniontown shopping center as "hinky." It was this very hinkiness that compelled management and police to render her persona non grata, even though she hadn’'t stolen anything.
10:39 p.m. More hinkage, same place. This time it was a man. A man and a bottle. The bottle wasn’'t his, and yet he seemed to enjoy its company, toting it around the store and placing it in different locations, thus maximizing the hink factor and attracting a security guard’s interest. When he went through the checkout line, though, the bottle was not visible. He left, the police came, but neither he nor his glassy shopping companion were located.
