The wind is howling in my face
from "Hell Hole" by Spinal Tap
Those of you who saw my primitive cave on Lehigh Street, home for countless slugs slithering around on the floor, know that I don't have the instinctive tendency towards what many call a civilized lifestyle. Yet, at the same time, I did not want to spend my life without a female by my side, so over the course of time I gradually "sold out", although I still cling to my slob roots as much as possible - just take a look at my own little office/bedroom and it is kind of a tribute to that. All the same, slowly but surely we have been getting real "furniture" here, and the last purchase was a sleigh bed for Victoria, something she has wanted for a long time. We got everything used.
The actual sleigh bed purchase was interesting - the woman we bought it for from a nice area called Galena Heights out here, was kind of rude on the phone - told us the deal was off when we did not come out there as quickly as she wanted us too, but Victoria persisted and sure enough we ended up at her house to buy it. She seemed nice on the outside, but had some definite neurotic and depressive energy (I know - you are thinking I should have felt right at home) and literally freaked out when I pulled out of the driveway at more than 2 miles per hour, for fear of hurting her bed frame we strapped onto the truck. Sara and her friend complained about her all the way back.
Well, the mattress to accompany it was bought yesterday, and we bought it from a wholesaler from a warehouse for what also seemed like a pretty good price. The guy loaded it onto the truck, with the mattress first, and the box springs on top of it. Now - I didn't think anything of it, but Victoria wondered why he was putting the lighter object on top, but did not want to offend him, or make him reload it - so she kept quiet. At the time, there was not even a hint of wind, and it was a nice sunny day, and we figured strapping it down would be good enough. There is always that nervous feeling you have when you have a pickup loaded with crap that it will find its way off, but most of the time you drive back a little nervously and that is the end of it.
Now - for those not familiar with Washoe Valley, it is quite a scenic but dangerous drive which is the only way to get from Reno to Carson City, and a portion of 395 heavily traveled for that reason. It is very windy there, and often people for whatever reason find themselves alive when entering it, and a mangled corpse that never leaves it alive, which is why the folks along the sides of it post signs like "killer highway" that beg people to slow down to the speed limit of 50, which quite often turns into actual speeds of up to 20 above that. It is also a speed trap filled with NHP waiting to give you a ticket for that reason. During the winter it is often almost barely drivable, and the snow and wind always seem to be a little worse there.
So - needless to say that calm day turned into a very windy one upon entering it. I all of a sudden got very nervous and I decided to travel behind a slow moving vehicle going only 40, but Victoria got impatient and told me to pass. I really did not want to, but she said there was no one around, so I made the lane change, only to look up in the mirror and see the wind pick up the box springs like a large pair of hands, lift it into the air and send it flying back. There was no place to pull over and retrieve it, and thankfully it did not appear to hit any vehicles, so we had to drive to the first place the concrete median stopped about a mile away, do a u-turn after re-strapping the mattress, and then drive a another mile or so for a u-turn, all the time wondering how we were going to run into a high speed highway to retrieve a box spring from the road. We found it on the side of the road, with a car next to it, and we were getting ready for the - your box spring caused us to hit it and we wrecked our car because of you story, but it turned out they had an unrelated blown tire, and told us some guys were nice enough to risk their lives and move it to the side of the road. So what potentially could have caused some accidents or car damage thankfully did not. In somewhat windy conditions with cars racing by within inches of us, we were able to load the box springs in the truck again - this time with the mattress on top of it - the right way.
Meanwhile, the bed was next to impossible to set up when we got back. I had asked the woman why the rails were not there, and she said it did not come with them. Well - it did need them and we went back to buy them, only to find they don't quite fit and now the whole set up is slightly crooked since it is lying on the top of one bed rail, and at the bottom of another with about a 1 to 2 inch sloping gap between both sides.
And all this re-inforces my view that we are just better off sleeping on the floor, and the more stuff we have, the more of a mess our lives become - "caught up in the devil's bargain" as the Joni Mitchell lyric goes. I suggested to Victoria that maybe the bed is haunted, and she is pretty freaked out about that now. So - if one of us dies suddenly for some strange reason - you all here know why - it was the bed's fault.
Those of you who saw my primitive cave on Lehigh Street, home for countless slugs slithering around on the floor, know that I don't have the instinctive tendency towards what many call a civilized lifestyle. Yet, at the same time, I did not want to spend my life without a female by my side, so over the course of time I gradually "sold out", although I still cling to my slob roots as much as possible - just take a look at my own little office/bedroom and it is kind of a tribute to that. All the same, slowly but surely we have been getting real "furniture" here, and the last purchase was a sleigh bed for Victoria, something she has wanted for a long time. We got everything used.
The actual sleigh bed purchase was interesting - the woman we bought it for from a nice area called Galena Heights out here, was kind of rude on the phone - told us the deal was off when we did not come out there as quickly as she wanted us too, but Victoria persisted and sure enough we ended up at her house to buy it. She seemed nice on the outside, but had some definite neurotic and depressive energy (I know - you are thinking I should have felt right at home) and literally freaked out when I pulled out of the driveway at more than 2 miles per hour, for fear of hurting her bed frame we strapped onto the truck. Sara and her friend complained about her all the way back.
Well, the mattress to accompany it was bought yesterday, and we bought it from a wholesaler from a warehouse for what also seemed like a pretty good price. The guy loaded it onto the truck, with the mattress first, and the box springs on top of it. Now - I didn't think anything of it, but Victoria wondered why he was putting the lighter object on top, but did not want to offend him, or make him reload it - so she kept quiet. At the time, there was not even a hint of wind, and it was a nice sunny day, and we figured strapping it down would be good enough. There is always that nervous feeling you have when you have a pickup loaded with crap that it will find its way off, but most of the time you drive back a little nervously and that is the end of it.
Now - for those not familiar with Washoe Valley, it is quite a scenic but dangerous drive which is the only way to get from Reno to Carson City, and a portion of 395 heavily traveled for that reason. It is very windy there, and often people for whatever reason find themselves alive when entering it, and a mangled corpse that never leaves it alive, which is why the folks along the sides of it post signs like "killer highway" that beg people to slow down to the speed limit of 50, which quite often turns into actual speeds of up to 20 above that. It is also a speed trap filled with NHP waiting to give you a ticket for that reason. During the winter it is often almost barely drivable, and the snow and wind always seem to be a little worse there.
So - needless to say that calm day turned into a very windy one upon entering it. I all of a sudden got very nervous and I decided to travel behind a slow moving vehicle going only 40, but Victoria got impatient and told me to pass. I really did not want to, but she said there was no one around, so I made the lane change, only to look up in the mirror and see the wind pick up the box springs like a large pair of hands, lift it into the air and send it flying back. There was no place to pull over and retrieve it, and thankfully it did not appear to hit any vehicles, so we had to drive to the first place the concrete median stopped about a mile away, do a u-turn after re-strapping the mattress, and then drive a another mile or so for a u-turn, all the time wondering how we were going to run into a high speed highway to retrieve a box spring from the road. We found it on the side of the road, with a car next to it, and we were getting ready for the - your box spring caused us to hit it and we wrecked our car because of you story, but it turned out they had an unrelated blown tire, and told us some guys were nice enough to risk their lives and move it to the side of the road. So what potentially could have caused some accidents or car damage thankfully did not. In somewhat windy conditions with cars racing by within inches of us, we were able to load the box springs in the truck again - this time with the mattress on top of it - the right way.
Meanwhile, the bed was next to impossible to set up when we got back. I had asked the woman why the rails were not there, and she said it did not come with them. Well - it did need them and we went back to buy them, only to find they don't quite fit and now the whole set up is slightly crooked since it is lying on the top of one bed rail, and at the bottom of another with about a 1 to 2 inch sloping gap between both sides.
And all this re-inforces my view that we are just better off sleeping on the floor, and the more stuff we have, the more of a mess our lives become - "caught up in the devil's bargain" as the Joni Mitchell lyric goes. I suggested to Victoria that maybe the bed is haunted, and she is pretty freaked out about that now. So - if one of us dies suddenly for some strange reason - you all here know why - it was the bed's fault.
posted by Zook at 6:10 AM
1 Comments:
So much drama just for a bed! Well I'm so glad it all worked out in the end and that nobody was hurt. The boxspring is undamaged too! Incredible. :)
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