The Mentalist and Me

It was a lazy Sunday morning. Coming to think of it, almost every Sunday is turning out to be lazy. Perhaps it does need some RedBull after all. Anyway, the point of discussion is not Sunday here. (ADD me). It's what happened on that fateful Sunday. 

Ady was up like an excited kid and was getting ready to go for his tennis match. Yeah, any sport which has a ball gets him excited.  I've thought of a couple of chores I could get him to do at home throwing the ball in. But I've ended up playing on the tennis court and lost more times than I care to admit. Again, I digress. So anyway, while I was lazying around with Driti, Ady was  getting all sporty with a head band, a wrist band. 

Just as I was falling back into deep slumber after having been woken up by the sounds of the man-of-the-house, trying to open the closet door 'silently', Ady called for me. "Can you please come down?" "Whyyyyy?" I moaned. 

"I'd much rather you come down. I don't want to speak about it with Driti around" he insisted. 

"But she's sleeping"

"Ok. In that case", he said very calmly "We've been robbed"

"What?" I got up at the speed of, if not faster than light. 

"Is everything gone? How did we sleep through all the breaking in? It's all because of you" I started. "You had to watch that movie late into the night and keep me awake and tired" I continued, running down the stairs.

"But it looks the usual amount of dirty to me" I paused confused. 

"Yeah, if you give me a minute to explain, I can tell you" Ady threw his hands up in exasperation. 

"The car. Somebody broke into our car"

"The iPod?"

"No. The iPod was inside the house. It's the GPS. Actually both the GPSes, the stands and the phone charger" We had borrowed an old GPS from a friend and had bought a new one recently. And not surprisingly, we kept both of them in the car."

Ady got into the car to check for stuff broken and stolen. "Use a cloth!" I screamed. "You'll erase the finger prints" I had watched too many Mentalist re-runs to know better. 

"Just call the cops first. This is a crime scene"

And Ady hadn't watched CSI or The Mentalist. So he reluctantly listened to the expert and called 911. He gave a detailed account to them and as he hung up, I asked animatedy, "So are they coming?" Strangely, I was excited about watching the cops in action. The fact that our property was damaged somehow took a back seat. No pun intended. "They love donuts," I added. "Should I get some?"

Ady looked at me like I was some crazy person. "That won't be necessary" he said. "They're not coming" 
"What do you mean? This is a crime!"
"Yeah, only you and I seem to be hyper reacting. The police asked me to call the insurance. They said it's very common here. They'll just call back with a complaint number"

I stared at him like a daft person. I couldn't believe all my Mentalist watching was of no use. 
All our neighbors reacted similarly. "Oh, it's your first time. You left the GPS on the dashboard?" Rookie mistake, we understood. But no one told us when we did. Everybody said it was stupid to leave the GPS on the car. How do we know? In India we left our car open so many times. Maybe it wasn't that attractive but nobody tried to take anything from the inside of a car which had a car seat.

Anyway, it was an aaha moment for us - Car break-ins are common - it's a part of settling in. Cops apparently don't all eat donuts. It's a stereotype. (I learnt this in a cultural awareness class). And the one statement we heard so often.... "Welcome to Seattle"