Suspicious Behavior in Petworth

I had brunch Sunday morning with my fabulous friend Jen. We met up at Domku in Petworth, which I'd not been to before. It was lovely. Bright and charming and friendly and the food was delicious.

She recently got back from two years of living in China. We'd kept in very sporadic touch, so we essentially had two years of life to catch up on. She is, quite honestly, one of the funniest humans on the planet. And we both speak remarkably quickly, so we covered a lot of ground in a couple hours.

We'd gotten done eating and were lingering over coffee refills, wrapping up stories and figuring out our respective afternoons when Jen said, "Hello, Officer Delicious!"

"Excuse me?"

She pointed out the window. "Oh. My. God. Look! That policeman is one of the best looking men I have ever seen."

I whipped around and she was absolutely right. He was TV good looking.

She said, "Well, I think it's time we left, don't you?"

We both leapt up, twirled our scarves around our necks, pulled on our hats and coats and grabbed our purses with the kind of speed you might expect from people trying to escape an avalanche.

We sprinted, as nonchalantly as possible, out the front door, and onto the sidewalk. At which point we slowed to a stroll. He was talking to a guy. Jen said, only loud enough for me to hear, "Oh, Officer Delicious!"

We sauntered halfway down the block, pretended to examine a building, then turned around and walked back by.

Yes, we are that mature.

By this time he was alone. We were trying to think of a crisis or a question, but couldn't come up with one fast enough.

Jen asked if I wanted to see her new car.

She is going to be moving to Macedonia for work, and apparently the roads there are terrible. So she was told she needs an SUV. She said she'd bought a bright red one. There was an enormous red Hummer parked right behind my car.

And I thought, "Oh, my God. Jen has turned into one of those 10-mile-per-gallon Hummer-driving planet ruiners!"

Thankfully she hadn't. Her cute little I don't know what but something small and reasonable was parked on the same side of the street as Officer Delicious.

So we got in her car, ostensibly so she could show me her navigation system. We sat and chatted, and while we were doing so, he drove away.

"Sigh. Goodbye Officer Delicious!"

And then, 2 minutes later, he passed back by, lights flashing.

"Should we follow him?"

"Absolutely!"

Because one should always follow policemen through Petworth to the scene of a crime.

We lost him, though. So she drove me back and dropped me off at my car. I told her that if he came back by she should tell him she'd seen something suspicious.

Jen replied, "Sure. I could say, 'Officer Delicious, I saw something suspicious. In fact, I think there might be something suspicious in my car. Could you get in and check it out?'"

"Sure. That's a great idea!"

"And then I'd say, 'What's that, Officer Delicious? My tongue in your ear? Oh, well yes, I do agree that is suspicious!'"