on mattresses

It was shortly after I moved that I realized that I needed a mattress, or some other sleeping apparatus to protect my rather wimpy lower back from my hardwood floors. With night approaching, I returned the phone call of a Craig Craiglister, a young (and rather dashing, in my opinion) gentleman looking to dispose of his roommate's full size mattress (which now that I think about it, is somewhat shady), and agreed to have him deliver his bed, box spring and all to my new apartment. As he came careening around the corner, honking loudly, my first thought was 'That is not a full size bed.' Indeed, it was Queen-sized. My first thought was: "That is not going to fit in my room," a dangerous thought for a bedless girl. In fact, the danger came much sooner. After taking one look at me and realizing that I was probably not going to be much help, Craig and his visiting girlfriend (hopefully, he didn't consider this a date), heaved the mattress up onto their shoulders and up the stairs. Halfway up, we were stuck. Or rather, they were stuck.

At this point, had I been Craig, I would have heaved the mattresses back onto the van, roped them once, maybe twice, and careened back around that corner. But Craig + girlfriend were not to be dissuaded. Craig ran frantically through the house, looking for another way. "The balcony, the balcony!!" he yelled excitedly to girlfriend, who broke into a run to the back of the house. I watched in horror as they proceeded to rip a hole in the bottom of the box spring, tied a rope to one of the wooden slats, and created a lasso on the end of the rope. "Catch!" girlfriend yelled to me, and after a couple of tries, I caught the end of the rope. For a half second, I thought that they expected me to haul the entire mattress up and over, but then Craig dashed up the stairs to take the rope from me. Apparently, I was not to help at all. As Craig pulled, girlfriend (who displayed extraordinary strength), pushed from below, until, the mattress was once again, unbelievably, stuck. Craig and girlfriend momentarily debated taking the door off of its hinges, as I watched, mute with disbelief, but they were thankfully dissuaded from that idea.

"Is there another way?" Craig pleaded? I remembered there was another balcony at the back of the house. His eyes lit up. "Go down there and catch the box spring, honey," he said to girlfriend. I giggled nervously, thinking that he was joking. But girlfriend skittered down the stairs, and stood beneath us, arms open wide, waiting for him to drop the box spring. Here was a relationship bound for marriage. The mattress eventually made its way into my room, a little saggy, very pink, but in the end, well worth the memory of getting it there.