The Princess and the 2"x4"

She tossed from right to left, exasperated. Forcing her eyes closed, she began counting sheep. One...two...three...four...oh, this is stupid, she thought. She rolled from the center of the bed to the far left side, finding only minimal relief. Something was keeping her up all night.

I don't understand, she thought anxiously. The bed looks comfortable. And it truly was a grand bed with pillows stacked high in tones of gold, jeweled purple and green. A lush comforter hugged the bed, creating a soft cloud of royal blue. It practically lured the young woman with promises of a blissful night's sleep and happy dreams. It was a bed made for a princess.


OR SO I THOUGHT.


However, I wish it were only a tiny pea keeping me up at night. I would KILL for a pea. According to my sister, they're practically the sprinkles of the vegetable world. And who doesn't like sprinkles?!? Instead, it was a 2"x4" that kept me restless. Or rather, eight 2"x4" 's.


It all began about a month ago. Well... let me clarify, it all began about 50 years ago. My mom and aunt are close in age, much like Sara and me. Growing up on the Chicago's southwest side, my mom shared a room with her younger sister, Lori. In the modest room was a set of twin size beds meant for bunking. My mom claimed the coveted top bunk, decorating the spacious headboard with a picture of Paul McCartney while Lori was relegated to the bottom bunk. Lori, being the rambunctious young girl she was, frequently kicked the bottom of my mom's mattress in playful jest. Giggles would follow and eventually, they would both drift into a sound night's sleep. Oh sisterly love!!


Fast forward 40 years, and Sara and I would use those same beds as our own, this time fashioned side-by-side rather than bunked. Our beds were decked out in various stuffed animals and pretty pink comforters to match our equally pink room. Each night, Grace would move from her room (don't ask me how the youngest daughter got her OWN room), and place a small mattress between our two beds, determined not to be left out. We three talked and joked into the night. Of course there were giggles and snickers every night as we, too, fell soundly asleep.


Years passed and we each moved into and decorated our own bedrooms. And with those new rooms came new beds. I upgraded my tiny little twin to a regal queen. Perhaps, this was my undoing. I never knew a bad night's sleep in my queen. There was room to toss and turn, lay diagonally, hell, even lay horizontally if I wanted to. But did I appreciate this gift from God? No! I slept a mere 7 hours a night and left the bed unused and alone the rest of the day. If only my 24 year old self could have told that ignorant 13 year old to cherish the sweet serenity of a queen size bed. Read in bed!! Paint you nails in bed!! For God's sake, take a nap on that bed! But alas, it was all gone before it was ever appreciated.


At age nineteen, when I moved to the city, I was catapulted back to reality when I pulled the ol' twin size bed from storage for use in my new room. I think the first few weeks of twin-sized life were clouded by the euphoria I felt about living downtown. When I sobered up, I realized my bed was much too small for a nineteen year old. There was also the fact that my roomate's cat would help me welcome each morning by sitting on my face and licking my ponytail, but in all fairness, I can't blame the bed for that. Then, I deluded myself into believing that a nice set of bedding would remedy my bed situation. So, I made a trip to Target and bought comfy-looking pillows which only crowded my bed even more and made for one hell of a subway ride home. Soon, I accepted the bed for what it was: an old, worn out, sorry excuse for a bed that still had a snowflake sticker stuck on the headboard that I put there when I was eight with a half-gnawed bedpost compliments of Warren The Cat.

And as if to come full circle, Sara and I found a cozy little place in the Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood a year later, with one tiny exception- it was a one bedroom. Yep, as though it were written for a sitcom, Sara and I were forced to return to out original side-by-side arrangement in our original twin size beds. Like Lucy and Desi or Ozzie and Harriet, we would wish each other a goodnight and retreat to our prospective beds. Unlike a sitcom, hilarity did not ensue.

I suffered with that bed for four excruciating years. Even after moving to a bigger place and getting my own room, I couldn't manage to drop the clams necessary for a new bed. Then, when I turned 24, I drew the line. 24 isn't what most would consider a milestone birthday, but it happened to be the year I graduated from college. I could longer brush off a couchless apartment and twin size bed with a chuckle and the 'poor college student' bit. Poor I was but college student I am no more. I committed to months of saving my hard earned cash and purchased a FULL SIZE MATTRESS.

Notice I only said 'mattress' and not box spring. You see, a box spring costs extra and I was convinced I could make do without one. I bought a bed frame that allowed for a box-springless mattress (or so I thought), and spent a solid three hours assembling it with Eric. We laughed, we cried, but we mostly just cried and cursed IKEA. We completed the bed frame just in time for the mattress to be delivered.

"It's HERE!!!!" I shrieked when the knock on the door came. "Right this way," I said with a exaggerated sweep of my arm to motion where the kind gentlemen could leave the mattress. I proudly pointed to my newly assembled bed frame and said, "Just right on the frame please," with a huge smile.

"Oh...you can't just use the frame. Where's the box spring? Or the wooden slats to make it a platform bed?" the delivery man asked with just a twinge of pity in his voice. The overwhelming feeling of exasperation and frustration must have shown on my face. I briefly tried to argue with the delivery man and convince him that bed frame would hold up just fine without a box spring or flats.

"Well, yeah but your mattress will sink in the middle. It's not good for the mattress," he reasoned. Not good for the mattress? What did I care about the health of the mattress? Needing to place blame on someone other than myself, I gave him a 'tude and asked, "Ok, well then what am I supposed to do?"

Perhaps sensing that I was teetering dangerously on the edge of insanity, he politely suggested I visit Home Depot and purchase a sheet of plywood to create a makeshift platform. Knowing that purchasing the sheet of plywood would require exact measurements on my part, I came up with the genius idea of using eight 2"x4"s placed horizontally across the bed frame's center beam., thus creating a series of wooden slats with which to support the mattress.

Visiting the Home Depot down the street proved fruitless in that their giant saw-thingy was not in working order. A friendly employee suggested me and my 'husband' (I just went with it) just purchase the 10 foot beams of wood and use our own saw and cut them ourselves. I informed her that neither I nor my husband was in possession of a saw, or a backyard or a garage in which to cut it for that matter.

"You don't have a saw?!" she asked and turned to Eric incredulously and slightly disgusted, as if she thought less of him because of it. Pitying us, she directed us the next closest Home Depot. Upon reaching our second Home Depot, we were helped my a man who was clearly unenthusiastic about 'talking wood' with two people who couldn't possibly know less about wood. Balsa wood is the only type I'm familiar with and, according to my eighth grade Industrial Arts class, it wouldn't work well to support a full size mattress.

Of course, when time came to cut the wood, I had forgotten the ONLY measurement that I was required to remember: the width of the bed frame. I was NOT leaving that Home Depot without my 2"x4"s so I went with the first number that came to my mind, 53 inches. And, really, what difference does an inch make, am I right? I won't tell you if I was right because I wouldn't want to bore my readers with the minute details of the story. Let's just say that the 2"x4"s pretty much got the job done.

And as expected, it felt like I was sleeping on 2"x4"s. I tried to convince myself that it would be good for the back, but then I realized I was starting to sound like my grandma. Solution: Featherbed Mattress Pad. Result: Better than sleeping on a cloud. So, 50 years later, I had a great night's sleep.