Darling, They've Stolen The Scooter

“Amore, mi hanno rubato il motorino!” Stella informs me over the phone. ‘Darling, they’ve stolen the scooter.’  Not again! I let rip with a string of curses that would make a football fan blush, but Stella interrupts me.  “Amore, I can’t leave the office; can you go to the police and report the theft, please.  And tell the insurance company.”
“I am trying to write,” I protest, though I don’t know why; the news of the scooter theft has dried up my creative juices.
“It’s important.”
“Oh, my writing isn’t?” This is pride talking here.
“Of course you’re writing is important. You know I think you are a wonderful writer. Please, amore.”
“Oh, all right,” I agree, my ego appeased - moderately.
And off I go.
My cell phone rings just as I reach the police station. I check the display. Stella. Now what?
“Amore, as I don’t have the scooter, could you fetch the children from school?”
I groan. “Yes, all right.”
I enter the police station and spend the best part of an hour describing the scooter, trying to remember its licence number (resolved after phone calls to Stella, who couldn’t remember either, and the insurance company, who expected to see me after the police were through with me), where it was stolen from, etc., etc… Was this the same scooter that had been stolen three months earlier (the time Stella left the key in the ignition)? Yes. The same one that had gone missing five months before that? Yes.
“You are not having a lot of luck with this scooter,” the police officer says with a smile.
“No, we’re not,” I respond. Without the smile.
“Keeping us busy, too,” he adds with a hint of reproach.
I nod, my expression an apology.
After the police station, I pay a visit to the insurance company with a copy of the ‘theft report’, and they promise to pay me a scant percentage of the scooter’s worth. I don’t bother to argue about it.
Next stop: pick up my daughter at school. She is overjoyed to see me. Not wanting to spoil the moment, I decide not to tell her that I had to come because the scooter has been stolen. Let her think it was a spur of the moment decision. We head home hand in hand, with my little one skipping along happily at my side and telling me all about her morning at school. I tell myself that I must do this more often, her attitude helping me forget, albeit briefly, the bloody scooter.
After leaving my daughter at home, I go pick up my son, who sees me and makes a face. “Where’s Mamma?” He wants to spend the afternoon at a friend’s house, and his mother would have said yes without question. “We’ll do our homework!” he promises in response to my inquiry. I agree, plant a kiss on his squirming head – “Not in front of the school, Daddy!” – and set off for home again.
On the walk - crossing Piazza della Rotonda, Piazza Navona, Campo d’ Fiori, Piazza Farnese - I fail to take in any of the city’s beauty. I am still too angry about the scooter, an anger that remains with me all afternoon and leaves me unable to write a word. Okay, the theft of a scooter isn’t one of life’s tragedies, but all the same; I just don’t like people who steal. Getting a new ‘second-hand’ scooter will require an outlay of funds, money we don’t have. Oh, well…
My cell phone rings later that afternoon. It’s Stella. “Ciao, amore,” she starts, surprising me by sounding calm and happy. “I’ve found the scooter."  She laughs.  "I’d forgotten where I’d parked it!  I feel so silly! Have you already been to the police? Otherwise you’ll have to go back and tell them it hasn’t been stolen."

Aaaaaahhhhh!!!

“Amore, are you still there?”

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