Granny (standard:humor, 1057 words)
Author: scarlettorocker	Added: Mar 19 2004	Views/Reads: 3644/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Need I elaborate?

Howie's sitting on the sofa, with a tray of beans on toast on his lap.
Six foot three of Yorkshire man, with his long, blond hair, Viking blue 
eyes and Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt. He's sitting on the sofa at my house, 
and Granny has popped her head round the kitchen door. “What do you 
have in your tea, dear?” she asks him. “Milk and two sugars please, 
Mrs. Haston,” he replies. I stand looking at him in surprise, as he 
gives me a broad grin. One which reads that he's pleased that he 
doesn't have to cook when he gets in. Coupled with well what I could 
do? Your nan made me sit down, while she made me some dinner. “Now 
dear, what are you going to have?” she asks me superfluously, mainly to 
impress Howie with her generosity of spirit. Because she's far more 
interested in feeding him. She's always like this when a man comes 
round. There's quite a few young men that come round, for they're my 
friends. And after years incarcerated at girls' schools, I've found 
myself part of a big gang of boys. Granny's always trying to set me up 
with one of them, but she reserves a special place for Howie. “Ooooh, I 
love Yorkshire,” she coos. “You can get some nice little houses up 
there, and they have the most lovely accents.” Your point being, 
Granny? “You should always marry your best friend, Emily,” she 
counsels. And one of my best friends is Howie. I can't say owt against 
me nan, as Howie would put it in his Northern English vernacular. Well 
not to him at least. Years later, I'm sharing a flat with some of his 
friends, and I'm about to start an intensive driving course at my work. 
Granny rings up to lecture me on getting an early night, but I'm not 
in. Howie takes the call. “Your nan says you've got to eat t'tea and 
get t'bed early,” he warns me. “On no, what else did she come out 
with?” I cringe. Howie isn't having it. “It's only because she cares.” 
When there were workmen at the flat downstairs, Granny sent me down 
with a big tray of tea, coffee and appetizing comestibles. “Thanks 
love,” they grinned. The lady who owned the flat they were working in 
had not rustled them up such snacks, for she was at the office. No 
doubt they were grateful to a world past, so exemplified by the kind 
old lady, where men were cosseted. And in return, men couldn't do 
enough for my grandmother. She had no sons, but two daughters. Plus a 
grand-daughter who could have been an extra child. With son-in-laws who 
flitted in and out of family life, like Hollywood starlets do marriage 
vows, it was small wonder that Granny honed in on young men. One day, I 
said I'd do a few household chores for her. Changing light bulbs and 
fitting plugs, which in her book were so-called male chores. I couldn't 
make it when I'd said I would, but arrived to find the jobs completed 
nonetheless. “Who did them?” I asked, impressed. Had Granny decided 
that it was never too late to change a light bulb? Not at all. “I got a 
man to change the light bulbs,” she effervesced. “Hang on a minute 
Granny... which man?” “Oh I don't know dear, he was just a man walking 
down the road. Nice young man” she explained. Granny had gone out into 
the street in her slippers, and stopped the first available fella. I 
don't doubt that she offered him a cup of tea as well. I was shocked. 
“Granny, you could be inviting anyone into your house!” “Oh don't be so 
silly, Emily, he was a nice man he wasn't going to hurt me” Granny said 
dismissively. “Anyway, when are you going to meet a nice man? Mind 
someone else doesn't snap that Howie of yours up. Then you'll be sorry, 
and I'll say ‘I told you so.'” Yet again, I cringed. “Granny, Howie is 
my friend, that's all.” She sure had the family monopoly on being 
toe-curling. My mum has stacks of stories of Granny showing her up, 
when she herself was young. Like the time when they were having lunch 
together in a nice restaurant. In 1960s Scotland, eating out wasn't as 
run-of-the-mill as it is today. All was well until Granny loudly asked 
the maitre d' where the bathroom was, explaining that her teenage 
daughter needed to use the lavatory. Or many moons later, shopping in 
London. Granny and Mum got to the pedestrian crossing as the traffic 
lights went green. The red man lit up, reminding walkers to stay put.  
But as the drivers went into second gear, Granny looked at the red man 
and decided that now was the right time to dash across the road. She 
answered the  fury of the braking drivers with a smirk, and my mother's 
face turned redder than the red man. Now she was wearing that same 
smirk again. “Anyway Granny, I don't need a man.” I wanted to impress 
her, for her to know that I was self-sufficient and that she needn't 
worry about me. “I'm a modern woman. I earn my own money AND I do all 
my own D-I-Y. So there!” “Oh Emily,” beams Granny, “I think a man is 
ever such a useful thing! They can lift heavy boxes, put up shelves and 
take you on lovely, long drives in the country.” “Granny, I can do all 
those things as well, and I enjoy doing them. Now, didn't you want your 
front doorbell to work?” That was so many years ago now, and sometimes 
Granny was right. I can do all these things by myself. After all, 
didn't she? Without women like her, there wouldn't have been a Britain 
to come back to in 1945, and not much of a world for me to have been 
born into many years hence.  Granny and her girlfriends ran the country 
capably and without complaining. But they sure missed their friends, 
the guys. Just like I would have done. I get on top of a chair, prise 
open the doorbell coverlet and change the batteries. Granny puts the 
kettle on and watches me with admiration. “Thank goodness I've got an 
Aries girl,” she says. 


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