Redux: The Mattress
April 9, 2007: 7:52 PM

(About a year ago, I lamented over a significant loss)

I had to park my car a half-block away because there was something blocking my driveway's entrance - the rain and the flowerbuds and the fact that I was driving 60 in a 40 zone had me confused just as to what. It was a long day of school, after all, and I just wanted to take the path of least resistance and get some rest.

Walking from my car back to my home, I saw that it was a mattress, now soak and wet, and covered in the rose-coloured bulbs that grow on the maples out front. It was my mattress. My favourite mattress, for the size of bed that I'm not sure they even make anymore. It's a perfect square, precisely as my bedframe intended it to be, and when I laid myself to sleep at night, my feet would dangle just over the edge and I'd get a numb feeling that I found easy to doze off to.

Now it was lying in a muddy puddle (muddle?) at the end of my driveway. The wind had tossed it there. I dropped my backpack in the doorway and dragged the mattress back to the garbage pile, trying to figure out exactly how this ordeal could've happened.

I really liked that mattress. I really miss that mattress.

I picked my backpack up and hung my coat. My hair was wet, and I was just beginning to notice the rest of me wasn't too dry, either.

"Don't get the couch wet. It's new, and I haven't put leather protector on it yet." That was Dad, who was renovating the living room. The couch was new, and very nice I might add.

"I got you a present. It's in your room."

Fuck. I don't want another present right now. I want my mattress to be not-soaked and not-wet and not-covered-in-whatever-the-fuck-the-tree-outfront-sheds.

I trudged along up the stairs and turned the corner, looked into my room. Dropped the backpack again.

Same bedframe and headboard, new mattress. New awkwardly long mattress, with a real springy feel to it. It hangs off the end of my bedframe and bends downward at the end, and takes up the room that I usually have to spin around in my chair at my desk when I'm dicking around and not studying.

The sheets didn't reach the end to be able to be tucked under, and when I tried to remedy this, the furthest it would reach with me laying down is about up to my midsection. This was not ideal. My comforter didn't hang over the edges, just sort of sat there, lifeless.

I now have a small, square bedframe with a long, rectangular mattress on it. It is 2:37 AM and I have to wake up for class in five hours, which is generally unreasonable for a 9-hour class day. I can't get comfortable and I keep tossing the blankets off by mistake, which would otherwise be anchored down. My feet don't dangle anymore. My dog won't sleep on the bed with me because it's all springy and the end of the bed hangs over, so he has to struggle not to roll off.

Everything feels awkward and I can't get to sleep, so I blog. If this doesn't work, I'm almost certain to turn to the drink.

I should probably avoid that, though. It's a long day for a hangover, and a longer half-block walk back to my car through the muddles in the morning.

Thanks for the comments: Don, Michael, priscilia, Meg, t.

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