The Telephone Game / Granny Lulu / Lauriz Anne Bonzon
Granny Lulu uses modern technology to teach today's youth the value of helping the elderly, to brighten their day with sweet music, to offer sagely advice, and to inspire people nationwide to go out and get Caller ID.
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In other news...omg HARRY POTTER. *heart attack*
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Lulu Lass (Lauriz Anne Bonzon) is a slightly senile, cranky old woman who resides in the Sagging Arms Retirement Home in Dublin, Ireland. She enjoys hearing herself talk and her age is higher than her IQ.
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The clock on the wall chimes. One. Two. Three o’ clock. It’s feeding time at the Sagging Arms nursing home.
The common room will soon be filled with grandmas and grandpas and the scent of orthopedic shoes, but for now it is empty, quiet but for the sound of sharp ticking—an antique coo-coo clock—and a robin’s song drifting in through an open window. All along the floral-patterned walls (which close in on the floral-patterned carpet) are assorted knick-knacks and souvenirs, arranged to create the nostalgic illusion: a pair of decorative plates; a dusty china doll; twelve pictures, black and white and in aluminum, oval frames; a painted lake; needlepoint; plastic flowers; and a shiny brown plague proclaiming, “HOME, SWEET HOME.”
Awaiting in perfect rows like silent soldiers are eight round tables, a dozen chairs to each. A colorful array of seat cushions and tablemats ruin the cool order of the arrangement with clumsy individuality, but no matter. The only guests expected to brunch today have already traded in their better decorative tastes for senior citizenship long ago.
When the hungry customers arrive, the relative silence passes, replaced by a chaos dampened by sluggishness of old age. The freshly vacuumed floor is the first to signal their coming, echoing the soft “thud, thud, thud” of a hundred slippered feet. In time, when their snail’s pace sees fit to deliver them to their destination, they emerge from the open hallway.
At first it is all canes and suspenders, long dresses and sleep gowns, loose nylon stockings and the sour-sweet scent of imported perfume. It fills the room, but is soon followed by small smatterings of the nurses’ crisp white uniforms and silver carts stacked with tea and hot food. There is some murmured conversation amid the clinking of utensils (and of several sets of dentures being snapped in simultaneously). There is a friendly squeaking wheelchairs and quiet coughing and, occasionally, a bewildered question or two. The coo-coo clock ticks away, announcing that it has been twenty minutes into brunch time, twenty minutes of bleary-eyed companionship.
The nurses and the residents of Sagging Arms lucky enough to retain their long-term memories count their blessings. Twenty whole minutes of peace. A modern-day miracle. Even the decorative china doll with the vacant eyes seemed in brighter spirits.
But momentary tranquility, no matter how blissful, is still doomed to end. And so at twenty-one minutes past three, old Lulu Flannigan (sometimes called “Granny Lulu” by...herself) makes her grand entrance.
“What’s this here now?” The woman wades into the sea of wrinkled masses, smacking exposed shins with her walking stick as she passes. In a whirlwind of activity that defies her supposedly frail body (and suggests a set of lungs more fitting of a middle-aged housewife, rather than an ancient crone), she makes known her distaste for the lack of green teacups and criticizes the state of her tapioca pudding. She claims to suffer a splinter from a polished wooden table, then threatens to sue. She knocks into an old man playing chess and topples the King and all of his men. She only doubles back to right the Queen.
It goes on like this until the clock chimes again. Once. Twice. Thrice...
And brunch hour has ended. The hurricane, Granny Lulu, though last to arrive, is the first to depart; and as always, she leaves in a state of supreme satisfaction. The nurses shake their heads. The elderly sigh and pack their effects—they’ve lived long enough to know that it’s best to just accept things.
Soon, the people have gone off to do whatever it is they did when not eating or playing chess or chatting about trivial matters (if one were to step outside, one could catch sight of a certain officious old woman scolding a group of teenagers about the length of their pants), leaving the room quite empty. The bird in the coo-coo clock would have rolled its eyes if it could.
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I had gone out for a bit of fresh air the other day--fancied a little walk in the park you see--when out of the blue, I somehow found myself in a darling little classroom on the other side of town. Now, it is well beyond me how I came to be in such a place (I, of course, blame the British), but the "hows" and "whys" are of little importance.
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