The Bed Post.
November 30th, 2006
I haven’t felt super well lately and being out of work has my sleeping schedule totally messed up. Take this morning, for example, I woke up at 4 AM totally ready to go. Tobyjoe was already awake worrying himself over money. You see we have five birthdays in the month of December, including Tobyjoe’s. We have Christmas, our anniversary, and then my birthday. December and January usually a really rough couple of months. By February, we’re usually poor and cold.
I tried to calm him down about money, saying, “It’s just money! We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about money.” After that, I suggested we get up and go to the gym, a feat we’ve attempted six times since the Great Consumption of 2006 took place last week. We haven’t been to the gym once. (That’s not entirely true; we went on a tour last weekend of Maxim, a local gym in Williamsburg. But that doesn’t really burn much in the way of calories. We even drove there.)
I’m tired, which has me going to bed at 10 PM. And this would be perfectly fantastic if it weren’t for our bed. And that brings me to the point of my writing today, dear Internet, our bed.
Our bed, like, the actual wood that holds everything together is a mere 4-years-old. It’s in perfectly fine shape, however, it’s also perfectly small especially when you throw in two decent-sized humans and three, really fat cats. I can’t tell people enough how absurd our sleeping situation is. Most people nod about it, “Yeah, cats, they can take up like a few inches!” No. These cats, the ones who pretty much own the household, they take up half the bed and we don’t fight them on it. Tobyjoe and I usually sleep on top of one another, legs fall asleep, and arms become totally numb, legs cramp up. It’s awful.
Usually, I deal with it right up until about 3 AM. That’s about the time that I throw a temper tantrum. This includes rapid leg kicks and usually a really bitchy, devilish “uhUH!” or two. Occasionally, I’ll get up in a huff and stomp to the bathroom where I find solace and space atop the toilet seat. I always want to blame Tobyjoe, but it’s not his fault. No. The fault lies on creatures entirely fuzzier.
But, honestly, the bed’s size isn’t my main concern right now. My main concern is with the fact that our mattress is about 3 years past its prime. It’s about six-years-old and we bought it used from Toby’s friend, Matt. Granted, Matt had only had the mattress for a few months but still, it’s used. Twice. Plus, it’s been moved five times, twice across the country. It’s old and it has something against my back, not literally, either.
I’m terrified of bed bugs so that pretty much rules out buying anything from one of those places that picks your old mattress up and drops off the new one in its place. I have shared the subway with other New Yorkers, and while some of them are clean others are some of the dirtiest, grossest people I’ve ever seen. That’s not to say that bed bugs only know the filthy. Recently Maya Rudolph sued her landlord over a bed bug infestation in her 13,500-a-month loft. (The greatest tragedy here isn’t the fact that her baby got some bed bug bites; it’s the fact that someone who can actually afford a 13,500-a-month lease RENTS AT ALL.)
Bed bugs don’t discriminate. And neither do those NYC mattress pick-up/drop-off trucks. Plus, according to the 11 o’clock news, sometimes they sell you used mattresses and tell you they are new. I’m done with used mattresses. I’d rather sleep on the floor.
Last night, I finally had enough of it and demanded we buy a new bed. It’s about damn time, after all. Tobyjoe has been talking about a specific bed for a couple of months now. In fact, the last time he went to San Francisco for business he very nearly almost didn’t come home. We’re looking at buying the bed, the bed apparently better than every other bed in the entire world, the bed that the Westin Hotel actually sells on premises. (Incidentally, I wonder how many of their patrons actually buy the bed after staying there.)
Lately, I have found myself excited over the most mundane things. I got excited while shopping for pillows recently, comforters, and soap. Candles practically have me jumping and clapping. The idea of buying a new bed, and having it delivered, has me gleeful, like it’s holiday and I did something really good for a change.
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