On their way back to la casa, as usual,
After their required stop at the banca,
Two Americans go into a store, naturally,
To fetch another notebook for writing.

The ones they found last year were great:
No spirals (to snag new Italian clothes),
With really neat, always artful, covers
And just the right spacing to compose.

So, of course, as soon as they entered
The place, our intrepid Americans found
The notebooks had been moved (so they
Thought) or were gone (soon they feared).

By the time the search was over, they’d
Bagged several unintended consequences:
One spiral notebook, an Umbrian cookbook,
And two new faces to greet when they pass.