LatinosUSA

Beyond her covered window, urchins chirped or screamed. Neither they nor their parents seemed to have any concern about their elderly neighbor, Isla Fuentes, whose ground floor bedroom faced their play space. In truth, when she had purchased her “retirement apartment,” she hadn’t considered that the public sidewalk beneath her shutters, rather than the environs’ parks and designated exercise areas might be the resident youngins’ favorite place.

Years passed without her daring to pull apart the covers that would let in the sun. Those kids had continued to be so regularly obnoxious and entirely loud that she had had to finally add the cost of vitamin D capsules to her budget. Isla had, likewise, bought earplugs but had never used them since she was fearful that they might get stuck inside her head. Worse, she couldn’t use her living room sofa as an alternate mattress since its contours hurt her spine; she had junked the couch, which she had loved for more than twenty years, when she had moved and then had treated herself to her current one, which, unbeknownst to her, was ergonomically impossible (even when she sat erect, she had to fuss with its cushions.)

At any rate, after years of supplements and backaches, Isla decided to try a new approach to handling the cacophony of the vicinity’s darlings. To be exact, she meant to distribute fruity frost pops to them.

Obtaining those icy delights turned out to be no small matter. Since the woman didn’t drive and could only walk small distances, she relied on her grocer’s delivery service for her comestibles. However, that retailer’s transporters were fairly inept at keeping frozen things frozen. Until Isla made inroads with that shop’s manager, her sweet stick delicacies, time and again, arrived in liquid form.

As it were, the long way round, when chatting with her cousin’s brother’s wife, the pensioner discovered that the mart’s supervisor had been an elementary school student of her husband’s sister. Accordingly, she dialed up her sister-in-law and asked her to gently remind that supermarket’s boss that melted freezies served no function.

Within hours (her sister-in-law had had decades of practice strongarming children), Isla received an apology and a crate (!) of properly cooled ices. Having only a small freezer compartment over her refrigerator, the abuela immediately implemented her scheme for achieving peace. Namely, she dragged the hamper of indulgences outside and handed a single portion to each child that passed by. Those boys and girls who took a “solemn oath” to be quiet and to try to quiet their peers, from two to four each afternoon, received seconds.

Whereas Isla wished that the tykes would abandon their sidewalk games altogether, her sagacious sister-in-law had cautioned her that behavior modifications require patience. Thus, the dividends from the senior’s initiative, initially, were modest.

Nonetheless, every Tuesday, the grocery store delivered a carton of paletas to Mrs. Isla Fuentes. Whereas the first batch had been gifted to her, subsequent lots were sold to her at cost. Be that as it may, after a few months of such efforts, nearly all of her discretionary funds had been used up. What’s more, she had only been able to parley four hours of daily silence. Plus, during the final days of her struggle, while passing out cherry and lemon-flavored frosts, Isla concluded that her addition of the noon to two o’clock hours, to her initial hushed span of two to four o’clock, had been a throwaway; toddlers were napping then and their older siblings were still in school. So, Isla, again, sought her sister-in-law’s counsel.

Her husband’s sibling advised Isla to stop buying and giving away snow lollies. The local youngsters should have already been sufficiently trained to be noiseless during Isla’s rest period. Going forward, Isla should save her money; pharmaceuticals were ever rising in cost and Isla’s health ought to be Isla’s highest priority.

Thereafter, no more cold desserts were delivered to Isla’s door. For a while, the area’s broods, anyway, sidestepped the sidewalk beneath her window during her prescribed golden hours.

All the same, despite the rascals’ fondness for the old lady, when school let out for the summer, their fondness for their mothers’ approval trumped any care that they might have  manifested for the stranger. More precisely, their moms wanted the children to occupy themselves outside.

Once more, all day, squawks and other expressions of juvenile hullabaloo took place on the other side of the wall against which was positioned Isla’s bed. Seemingly, given parental prerogative, it had not been enough to endear herself to her small neighbors as “Abuela Popsicle.”