My grandmother Helen had just turned 84. She lived alone in that old house and refused to move. Her husband had died many years ago. He use to keep the place up, so now it was the family having to help out.
I was heading home from work, but needed to go by Helen's place first to replace a window shade. I drove up the drive and Helen was at the side door happy to see me.
"Marcus, my dear, thanks for coming over and helping your old granny out."
"Not a problem Grandma. I'm glad to help out."
I made my way in and granny gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
"It's the mini blind in my bedroom upstairs," Grandma said. "It just keeps falling off the...whatever those things are called."
"Okay, let's have a look at it."
Granny led me up the narrow stairs to the second floor and we made a sharp turn to the right. I realized that I had never been upstairs in her house before. The second floor was situated under the roof. It was almost like an attic space. Her bedroom was nicely decorated and looked comfortable and warm. In the middle was an older queen size bed, just next to the dormer window with the malfunctioning mini blind.
"Looks like the mounting brackets are coming loose from the wall. I think I can take care of that. I'll grab a couple of tools from my car and be right back."
As I exited the small room I had to turn sideways to fit between the bed and grandma. It almost seemed that she let herself get brushed up against.
"I got the tools grandma, let's get 'er fixed."
"Oh, thank you so much Marcus. I don't know what I'd do if..." Grandma said.
I tapped out new mounting holes for the brackets, got them aligned and tightened up in no time. Now to rehang the mini blinds. I turned to pick them up and noticed that granny seemed to be staring at my butt. She looked up and blushed a bit. I got back to work and the blinds were good to go again.
"Marcus, again, thanks!" Granny said. "Since the blinds are in my bedroom I always worried that someone might be trying to watch me outside."
"Well Grandma, your privacy is safe now."
"Grandma," I continued, "I've never been up here before."
Granny said, "Do you like it?"
"Yes, it's really kind of nice and comfortable up here."
"We haven't really talked in a while." granny said. "Could you stay for a bit?"
"The repair didn't talk long at all, I can stay for a while."
"Have a seat."