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Old Gray Mare
How do you tell your sister that
her bed is ready for the compost pile? The deep six? A swayback
mare ready for the glue factory?
She has so graciously invited me
to stay for an entire week at her posh condo in the beguiling
forests of the Great Pacific Northwest – how can I tell her that
her broken down guest bed has made me a pig-in-a-blanket, like
dad used to cook up on Sunday mornings?
I am stupid from nine hours
travel, my ear is ringing, my head is buzzing and I’m yearning
to hit the sack. And, oh, what a sad sack it is.
I pitch and roll on it trying to
find a spot that isn’t sagging to the floor. Hell, I might as
well sleep on the floor. After nearly capsizing off this
un-seaworthy Titanic I roll toward the leeward side. But at
mid-point I’m met with a spine - the hump on a camel’s back –
and moving over that, I pitch windward. I’m thinking, “Woman
overboard!” as I crawl onto the floor, cursing and wishing I
could grab a hose and pump some polyester foam back into it to
plump it up.
“OK, sucka’, this is WAR!”
I retrieve a narrow blow-up
mattress my thoughtful sibling has stored beneath this leviathan
because last year I had also bemoaned the sad sack.
I sandwich the flotation device
beneath the sheets, mount it and pitch and roll like a surfer
riding the Pipeline.
By now it’s about 2 a.m. and,
shocked out of my travel stupor, sleep evades me. Instead, my
brain is calculating like a CPA’s in April: “I’m going to have
to stay in a hotel. That’s gonna cost at least $500, so why not
buy her a new mattress? I’d have something to show for my money
and if she ever invites me back, which is dubious after I tell
her how lousy her bed still is, I’ll be able to sleep in bliss
in yearly visits to come. And so will her other guests.”
I will reason with her, “I’m
claustrophobic. That’s why I always get a window seat on planes.
Your mattress is trying to swallow me whole. It’s clinging to me
like white on rice. You may come in tomorrow morning and not be
able to find me. I’ll be gobbled up in mattress hell.”
I toss and turn, prod and poke
old Nellie’s bumps, and can’t begin to guess her age: 15? 20?
I fall into a fitful sleep and,
the next morning, decide to give old Nellie one more trial
night. And if it’s another pillow fight, I’m gonna tell my
sister, once and for all, “The old gray mare she ain’t what she
used to be. It’s time to put her out to pasture. And I’ll be
glad to pay for it.”
Depending on her reaction I’ll be
vacationing next year in Washington or Arizona. . .
The next night she unfurls a
queen-sized Zodiac and pumps it up to maximum, still trying to
satisfy me.
“Are you sure you want to put the
down comforter mattress pad on TOP of it?” she queries.
“Oh, yes,” says stubborn me as I
edge my way into another sleepless in Seattle night: smothered
in a marshmallow.
At about 4 a.m., I get a clue:
maybe it IS the down-filled pad that’s making this bed a white
water rafting trip. So I throw it to the floor and –
whodathunkit? – the mattress underneath is pretty OK.
The next day I eat several
portions of humble pie and, in ensuing nights, sleep peacefully.
Well, enough at least for this old mare to enjoy the rest of her
trip . . .
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