Intrusion

The door was securely locked and the house fairly clean. I state 'fairly' as I agree with what Sneha (or was it Srikanth?) tells in the movie 'Parthiban Kanavu' about a house needing to be a home and not a museum to be absolutely spick and span. :-D [Now I am sure to be taken care of with the ammikkal I had referred to in the travelogue :-) as already the dining table is never used for dining.]

We return back in the night after around 6 hours. Door was still securely locked. Things looked the same, that is, almost.

RamMmm: Who left these banana peels here, in the middle of the room?
La Niña: Don't know, not me.
RamMmm shrugs, moves the peels to a safe place and climbs upstairs.
RamMmm (with a slightly raised voice): Who ate bananas? Who dropped the peels on the stairs? Someone could slip
La Niña, Señora (surprised): What? No one ate any bananas.
Señora (from the kitchen): Why is the packet of salt on the floor and broken?
(Bulbs flash that it could have been an intruder...)
Señora (panic): Go, go, go see if all the doors are still locked.
RamMmm (scrambling): Yes, they are. But wait, one window is open!
Señora: All bananas are missing.
(Ha Haa, more bulbs again) 

It must have been a simian (Sherlock Holmes, ahem! me, deduces that there must have been only one because two would have caused mayhem inside the house, Two is company, isn't it?) that has sauntered in through an open window on 1st floor, pass 2 rooms, climb down the stairs to the ground floor, get into the kitchen and finish off around 10 yelakki bananas, throw the peels here and there, push a few things down and make an escape long before we were back.

Our laugh amongst all this was that El Niño's keychain that has a small rubbery banana toy attached, was targeted by the monkey as a real banana. It was ripped into two pieces and discarded. Maybe should have been there to see the face of the monkey when it bit into the rubbery banana. :-D

And now, the security threat level in the house has been raised to Orange (high risk) from Blue (guarded), [Ha Ha Ha, blame the US Dept of Homeland Security for these coloring schemes] where most of the windows and doors will be locked down before any trip out of the house, however short the duration. The next day, it was noticed that lots of Alpenliebe wrappers were strewn on the sunshades with the candy gone. Smart monkeys, there are, and they become smarter by the day, living alongside us. God save!

[There had been a burglary a few months back in our layout where the burglar(s) cleaned up almost all valuables in the house, opened the fridge, ate whatever was in there and then made good their escape while the inmates continued to sleep. :-( Another one happened in just a gap of around 2 hours in the evening when the people were out for a function. They returned to find the house vandalized and some valuables along with cash gone. This house was in the direct line of sight of the layout's security gate. And hence all the paranoia]