Max, my eight year old grandson, asked if I’d ever eaten potato latkes (pancakes) from a boxed mix, and described how horrible they were. I promised to whip up some fresh batter and bring it with me the following week when we’d be babysitting for him and Dylon, his eleven year old brother, while his parents were on a cruise.
The following weekend Mighty Marc and I headed for Connecticut at 6:00 AM, during pitch darkness, torrential rains, 50 mph gale winds and low visibility. We arrived at 9:30 AM with throbbing headaches and dreams of sprawling out on the couch.
Dylon was asleep. Max was up and hungry, so I began making the promised latkes,. When they were crisp and browned, I drained the first batch onto paper towels.
“Come and get it.” I said.
Large dark eyes looked up at me. “Can I have cereal?”
”Cereal? Taste these first.” I put one onto a dish.
Drowning it with half a bottle of apple sauce, he tasted one obligatory morsel and asked, “Now can I have cereal?”
I decided to let him live.
The cooking oil had started smoking, so I asked Max to open the doors.
Suddenly, a blaring, shrill, deafening, staccato alarm rang out, accompanied by a bellowing voice that shouted, “FIRE, FIRE, LEAVE THE HOUSE IMMEDIATELY.”
This was not like the fire alarms I have stuck to my home ceilings that can be hushed with several vigorous passes of my broom. This noise had an urgency. This noise did not allow us to hear ourselves talk, or think. This noise could be heard in Australia. We ran in exhaustive circles trying to make it stop.
Dylon came flying down the stairs in his shorts, color drained from his face. When he saw there wasn’t a fire, he looked down at my potato latkes and asked, “Can I have cereal?”
Marc asked Dylon if he knew the code to disengage the alarm.
“8, 7, something, something else, and end with a 1…………..I think.”
Marc pressed a combination of numbers on the key pad and suddenly, FIRE, FIRE, LEAVE THE HOUSE IMMEDIATELY changed to BEVERLY, BEVERLY, YOU’VE COMMITTED A CRIME.
Who the hell was Beverly?
The phone rang. It was the fire department asking if everything was alright. Assured that we weren’t ablaze, they asked for the password. Dylon remembered it. Phew!
We phoned the fire alarm company. Nobody was there.
We phoned the police. They couldn’t help.
We phoned friends, neighbors and relatives. Nobody knew the code.
We turned off all circuit breakers, but it had it’s own power supply.
Mighty Marc, usually gentle and easy-going, morphed into Mr. Hyde, as his pounding headache directed his actions. “Get me a screw driver” he yelled.
“Not that…a Phillips head…..whatdaya mean you can’t find one?”
He frantically ransacked drawers, garage, and basement. Successful in his quest, he removed the cover from the downstairs noise maker and cut the speaker wires. It was at last quiet. Downstairs. But noise still blasted from upstairs, out into the neighborhood, with no way to stop it.
My head pulsating, I took a bathroom break, and with the door shut it was suddenly clear what the voice was actually blasting. BURGLARY, BURGLARY, YOU HAVE COMMITTED A CRIME.
Beverly was off the hook.
Out of ideas I posted a note on the front door:
Yes, we know the alarm is blaring.
Alarm company not available.
Fire Department can’t help.
Police can’t help.
Parents on cruise.
Grandparents in charge, going insane, and heading for a motel.
Cell phone, 555-1234.
Instead, though, we went to a movie and dinner. When we returned to pack up some clothes the monster was still screaming.
Suddenly, a policewoman knocked on the door. A neighbor had complained. FINALLY.
Then, the phone rang. It was the alarm company responding to our six desperate phone messages. It seems she’d left her post to pick up her son who, judging from the five and a half hours she was away from her desk, must have been in China.
She gave us the code – wrong at first – but then………………….quiet. Blissful, serene, quiet.
Never again will I make potato latkes.
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