But when we went to move her mattress and box spring upstairs we discovered one terrible fact: The box spring was too big to carry up the winding staircase to the second floor. The mattresses would bend so we could get them around the place when the stairs turn, but not the box spring.
After giving it much thought we called my brother, Eddie, to come over and look at the problem. He was no better at figuring out how to get it up the stairs than we were. But I had an idea. Why don't we saw the side of the box spring so that it will bend and we can sort of fold it and carry it upstairs, I asked.
My spouse and brother passed a look between them that said, "Get thee to a straight jacket." But after deciding they couldn't pull it up through the window (too small) and couldn't find any other way to do it, they gave in and sawed the box spring.
That worked, but the bed was never very stable and a year later, during a Christmas get-together, all the kids in attendance (including my two) trudged upstairs and jumped up and down on the bed until the box spring broke down. So we dragged the whole mess downstairs and bought my daughter a full sized bed, which fit upstairs just fine, thank you.
Then we started having trouble with that bed. It was sinking in the middle. My husband swore, not too softly or under his breath, then decided the bed needed adjusting. He adjusted it and it sank again. So he fixed it again.
When the bed sagged again, my spouse turned livid. He called Elizabeth to task and wanted to know why she and her friends were jumping up and down on her bed.
"But, I'm not!" she protested. Hubby muttered something about her thinking he was an idiot, then stomped back upstairs and fixed it one more time. A week later, it was sinking in the middle. I'm sure my husband's temperature reached the boiling point. And that – fortunately for my daughter, but not too fortunately for my son – is when we discovered what was really happening to the bed. My son was doing it.
The 130-pound 10-year-old I have, blurted out the truth to me during a conversation. When I asked him why he was jumping up and down on his sister's bed he said, "Because I can't do it on my bunk bed, Mom. It would hurt."
OK, he had me there. But his Dad wasn't any too thrilled when he returned home and found the bed broken down again. This time he went to the store and bought some supplies and spent a couple hours working on it. Then he presented a bill to my son for $50 for materials and labor. With an allowance of $5 a week, it's going to take him until some time in 2002 to finish paying it off. And hopefully he's smart enough to stay off his sister's bed from now on.
Although, to tell the truth, our bed is starting to look a little like it's sagging in the middle lately, too.
