Police in Rome some weeks ago were alerted to cries and screams coming from an apartment. When they arrived they found 84 year old Jole and her 94 year old husband Michele upset over news of violence and evil in the world. The four policemen took pity on the elderly couple. They asked for permission to enter their kitchen and engaged in that splendid Italian ritual: cooking pasta. “They improvised dinner,” said the police report shared on a Facebook post. “A dish of pasta with butter and cheese. Nothing special. But with a precious ingredient: in it, there was all their humanity.” So, an officer called Andrea did the cooking, while Alessandro, Ernesto, and Mirko entertained their new friends, who had been alone and unvisited for many months. “Life is not always easy. Especially when the city is empty and neighbors are gone away on vacation. Sometimes loneliness dissolves into tears.” No, life is not easy, but Italians keep solving it one problem at a time, with a lot of sun, a lot of flavors, and a lot of love. And they give us a lesson, too, in the art of writing a police report.