I hope you made it to corner-store heaven. You always served me well for my convenience needs. Except your store aisles seemed a little too empty. Only one choice of garbage bags. A few loaves of white bread. A grill behind the front counter that I never saw used. An extremely limited selection of ice cream even if you count blue raspberry pops as ice cream.

But you did carry a version of the King Kone which was a huge plus. And beer. And despite your dealing with an ATM machine that seemed to break down a lot and, well, your imminent doom, you didn't take it out on the customer. We never saw you worry or freak out.

You were always friendly.

You were a few feet from my apartment. You will be missed.

Read More "Mount Pleasant Deli R.I.P." »

At 4 a.m., I woke up to the sounds of a man shouting outside my window. This is not unusual. I live at 16th and Irving Streets NW. There's always somebody shouting, joking, cranking music from their car stereo. The better stuff: sounds of puking.

None of this I particularly mind. Except for this man. He got into his car and seemed to be speeding up and down Mount Pleasant Street. It sounded like he was crashing into things. I could be totally wrong. It was 4 a.m. But what I'm not wrong about is what he was screaming at the top of his lungs.

I heard the man scream "Nigger!"

And "Fucking Nigger!"

And "Do you fucking hear me?"

I heard him loud and clear. It was scary. And it was 4 a.m. I thought about calling 911. I decided that if he said the N-Word one more time, I'd dial. The man did. I called. Thankfully, the dispatcher was nice and did not view this as a waste of time or some violation of 1st Amendment rights. She said I wasn't the first to call.

By the time the police arrived, I'm pretty sure the man was long gone. There's nothing on the listserv about the incident. Does anybody have more info on this crazy scene?