Christmas sweaters and rude awakenings
Dec. 27th, 2004 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonantThe in-laws' Christmas sweater this year is fleece. (The very thought of a whole sweater made of fleece makes my hands sweat.) It's a shade of pale pink that no one over three would actually choose to wear. It makes me look like the large economy-sized bottle of Pepto-Bismol. On the plus side, though, it came from a national catalog. One that gives refunds for gift returns -- cash money! To spend someplace else! Off to the post office I go.
I have to wonder, though. The spouse and I have been married for thirteen years, and they've given me a sweater every single Christmas. Just how many sweaters do they think I need?
Meanwhile, three nights in a row we've been awakened in the wee hours by the bed collapsing.
The mattress is supported by a group of ten slats, which rest on a wooden lip attached to each of the side rails. The slats are held together by a strip of webbing on each side to prevent them from getting sufficiently diagonal that they can fall down, but sometimes they tear loose from the webbing.
So the bed collapsed on Christmas morning at about 6:15. We just got up and went downstairs to watch the kidlet open presents, and later I tried to fix it by gluing the slats back to the webbing (a strategy that has worked in the past).
That held until about 3:45 the next morning, at which point I went to sleep on the floor and the spouse went to attempt to sleep on the couch, at which effort, being a foot or so longer than the couch, he failed. Later that day I tried to fix the problem by staple-gunning five new strips of webbing to the slats (a strategy that has also worked in the past -- we've got a long history of occasional bed breakdowns).
That held until about 4:15 this morning, at which point we discovered that one of the side rails, which ought to be attached to the footboard by two screws, is actually only attached by one screw. This allows the bottom of the side rail to tilt outward just enough to fail to support the slats.
In a state of drunken politeness occasioned by three nights of punctured sleep and the fact that neither of us could see well enough to locate our glasses, we dismantled the frame just far enough to allow us to put the mattress on the floor, and staggered back onto it.
I have a new plan for fixing the bed, but I'm not going to attempt it until we've both had seven days of uninterrupted sleep. And if you see me and I'm acting strangely, now you know why.
I have to wonder, though. The spouse and I have been married for thirteen years, and they've given me a sweater every single Christmas. Just how many sweaters do they think I need?
Meanwhile, three nights in a row we've been awakened in the wee hours by the bed collapsing.
The mattress is supported by a group of ten slats, which rest on a wooden lip attached to each of the side rails. The slats are held together by a strip of webbing on each side to prevent them from getting sufficiently diagonal that they can fall down, but sometimes they tear loose from the webbing.
So the bed collapsed on Christmas morning at about 6:15. We just got up and went downstairs to watch the kidlet open presents, and later I tried to fix it by gluing the slats back to the webbing (a strategy that has worked in the past).
That held until about 3:45 the next morning, at which point I went to sleep on the floor and the spouse went to attempt to sleep on the couch, at which effort, being a foot or so longer than the couch, he failed. Later that day I tried to fix the problem by staple-gunning five new strips of webbing to the slats (a strategy that has also worked in the past -- we've got a long history of occasional bed breakdowns).
That held until about 4:15 this morning, at which point we discovered that one of the side rails, which ought to be attached to the footboard by two screws, is actually only attached by one screw. This allows the bottom of the side rail to tilt outward just enough to fail to support the slats.
In a state of drunken politeness occasioned by three nights of punctured sleep and the fact that neither of us could see well enough to locate our glasses, we dismantled the frame just far enough to allow us to put the mattress on the floor, and staggered back onto it.
I have a new plan for fixing the bed, but I'm not going to attempt it until we've both had seven days of uninterrupted sleep. And if you see me and I'm acting strangely, now you know why.