COMPREHENSIVE INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL

The following is an editorial piece written and composed by COMPREHENSIVE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATE Leo Baum. In the text, he reminisces humorous experience with his grandmother, who he lovingly knows as “Bubbe.”

My concept of time isn’t particularly excellent, though I often find myself exaggerating the amount of elapsed time between the present, and the moment I’m recalling. I think this probably stems from a desire to be older or at least to have lived a large number of years, or possibly, although all of the three now aforementioned could exist and be true simultaneously, I have some kind of complex that equates importance or relevance with age, which could in theory have some kind of religious component or origin, although that might be an overanalysis of a simple conversational behavior. So for the sake of placing my now lengthy-expositioned story in time, I could say that the following occurred “about seven years ago,” although it could have been just four years ago, though I am nearly certain that it was not less than three years ago. 

Myself and my dear brother, Cooper, were spending the night at my grandma’s, who we affectionately call “Bubbe,” due to a combination of unwavering love, and vague Eastern-European Yiddish lineage. And as a point of digression, it’s almost a crime to have to describe her in text as no description of her white curly hair extending approximately the length of two packs of Smarties Candies stacked one on top of the other from each side of her head, and her demeanor so intensely magnetic with an almost melodic quality when she speaks. I will also note that in her youth she resembled a young Julie Andrews, and in comparing a photograph from her wedding with a frame of the 1964 classic Mary Poppins—specifically the scene where Mary Poppins is surrounded by the Penguins in a beautiful oil pastel world—it becomes difficult to discern one from the other. Also, Bubbe is an antiques collector and former part-time antique dealer, with her house covered wall to wall in advertisements, her kitchen edge to edge in porcelain head planters, and her living room with a live sized Mr. Peanut Planters Peanuts Mascot. With necessary context established, I must also explain that Bubbe takes security very seriously, and therefore ironically employed the worst possible Security Company to alarm her home. I do not believe that the company has a name, although I do know that it is owned by one man and the man’s name is Ivan. It is my basic understanding that this security company has no legitimate infrastructure, and then if one of the sensors is triggered by a potential intruder, Ivan will personally call the local municipality police department, and probably beg them to assume his legitimacy, and only then will the necessary authorities be dispatched. This system was installed in the early 1990’s, although I am positive that it did not work even then. On the night I stayed with Bubbe, this alarm system decided to once again act awfully and irrationally. After Cooper had fallen asleep, at an hour late in the night time, an awful piercing shrieking sound started emanating throughout the house. This noise was painful. I will say that had there been a fire, every person in the house would have known immediately that danger was imminent, and they would therefore immediately leave the house, mostly to escape the terrible shrieking noise. In our case, there was no fire, and also no danger, though this awful sound was instantly unbearable. Bubbe and I could not locate the source of the sound, and using what is most rational people’s Plan B, Bubbe executed her Plan A, which was naturally to make a call to the local fire department. And not five minutes later, well past midnight, two full-scale fire trucks with every possible light turned on made their way down Bubbe’s street, parking right in front of her house. In a moment of anti-climax, the firemen, apparently familiar with Bubbe, removed one battery from a smoke detector. The noise stopped. The main observation I made was that the composure and amiability Bubbe still held even in this moment of nuisance was extraordinary; she and I laugh often about the sheer absurdity and dramatic response of the fire department. If anything, from her I have gained the ability to recognize the humor and appreciate the hilarity in what would otherwise be unsaturated grievance. I will send her this paragraph as soon as I’ve finished it, and then will call her in Florida to explain that I sent her a text message.