There’s nothing better than a grandma who is too old to be making trouble, but who has no intention of stopping.

We love them and we love the stories they leave behind.

OP’s grandma was like this.

My grandmother (93) has always been super fun and active.

She played softball in an organized league until her late 60s, broke her elbow in her 70s while going for a backhand on the tennis court, and was always game for playing catch or throwing a Frisbee around the yard when we were growing up.

My grandfather, her husband, died about 30 years ago, and he was really big into woodworking.

Gram still has his woodworking shop fully set up in the basement of her house (this will be important later).

After a surgery, though, her family asked her to take it easy.

A few years ago, Gram needed to have back surgery. Once this was done and she was back home, her kids sat her down and specifically laid out a few safety rules, including one about No Getting On Ladders (because of the risk of reinjury in case of a fall).

• No climbing on a ladder to change the lightbulbs in the hallway fixture.
• No using the pull-down ladder into the attic to get the holiday decorations.
• No using the ladder outside to clean the gutters (something she legit did up until that point!).

If you need help with these chores, one of the kids or grandkids can come do it.

She didn’t want to go back on her word so she found a workaround.

Fast forward to the end of that year, and Gram is preparing her Christmas decorations.

She’s got an 8-foot-tall artificial tree that she’s had for several years; however, it’s now too tall for her to reach the top of without explicitly breaking the rule about ladders.

As you may know, these types of trees typically come in three sections that you slide together to assemble — base, middle, and top, each with a number of rows of branches.

She could absolutely afford to just buy a new, shorter tree, but instead decided to take a different tack.

Bristling a bit at the “no ladders” rule, Gram takes the bottom (heaviest and widest) section of the Christmas tree, drags it down the steep steps to the basement, and runs it through Grandpa’s old table saw to cut the pole and eliminate the bottom two rows of branches.

Voila!

A tree short enough to perfectly comply with the “no ladders” edict.

If they were surprised, they probably shouldn’t have been.

My mom and aunts and uncles were basically speechless like…well, yep, didn’t think to specifically forbid that one, so you’ve got us there!

And everyone who was around just had to laugh and join in decorating the comically shortened tree.

And yes, she still has it, and yes, it looks totally absurd.

Everyone hopes to be a grandma like this one.

Of course, some of us are behind the curve.

They are legion.

And no, they don’t like to listen.

Bless his heart. He knew better.

Ah, I miss my own wiley granny.

Maybe one day I’ll get to be one myself.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.