The holiday weekend yawned before us with nary a plan, which was delightful news because we'd both had harrowing weeks at work. "I can't TELL you how happy I am to be home with nothing to do," Ned kept telling me all of Friday evening, thereby rendering him a big liar, or at least inaccurate. "I can't BEGIN to tell you."
I'd gotten home several hours before Ned had, as they usually let us out a little early before a holiday, and I love my job. That meant by the time Ned got home, I was well into watching various versions of A Star is Born. "Well, I watched an old one, and now I'm watching the new one," I explained to Ned, who wondered why Barbra Streisand was in his living room. And what's sad is that to me, a movie from 1976 is "new."
"An old version; you mean with Judy Garland?" asked Ned, who is clearly a closet homosexual.
"No, with that other actress."
"There's another version of A Star is Born that doesn't have Judy Garland or Barbra Streisand?" asked Ned, who, okay, maybe is straight after all.
You know how Ned couldn't TELL me how glad he was to be home? I can't TELL you how much Ned hated A Star is Born starring Barbra Streisand. Just this morning, he said, "I hated that movie so much that it's stuck with me. I can't stop thinking about it." Ned, who's dragged me to movies where cats get killed and an entire room full of people--AN ENTIRE ROOM--vomits apples onto a tarp. Oh, and once he took me to a movie where someone cut a prostitute clean across the face.
But Barbara Streisand singing Evergreen. That he can't shake.
That is why I said yes to Ned's suggestion that we look for a headboard yesterday. I felt I owed it to him after he had to watch Barbra jam out to Watch Closely Now. His bed has no headboard, and he's been wanting one for some time, so we headed to The World's Busiest Antique Store with The World's Fucked-Upidiest Parking Lot. On a Saturday. On a holiday weekend.
We had to cut several people clean across the face in order to get a parking spot, and then we had to wedge our way past every embroidered-sweatshirted old lady who's ever been born just to get into the place. It's this big warehouse of "consignment" items, which is supposed to convince you that you got a deal, except everything in there is just as expensive as brand-new stuff. But you know how Ned and I are. We like old.
We vomited apples on the heads of several shoppers so they'd get out of our way and we could get to the headboards, which were conveniently piled on top of each other so that you'd die in a headboard avalanche, which is a heroic way to go.
I can't believe I captured Ned alone in that room. I swear to you every other second we were there was like we were in Disneyland. Our favorite thing we found was this:
What do you think happened? Did he or she marry person number 8, or just get a new bed, or what? Am dying to know.
After defying death like we were Evil-Antique-Shopper Knevil or something, we finally found a headboard we liked. It was a huge four-poster bed, though, and not just a headboard. We debated it for awhile, but it was so pretty, and there was a Labor Day sale, so what the heck. We took the tag to the front counter.
"It'll be $60 for delivery," said the saleswoman, which pretty much negated the sale price. "We can deliver Wednesday at 10:30."
Oh! Wednesday at 10:30! How conveeeeenient! Because everyone's home then!
"Why don't we get one of the trucks from your work and bring it home ourselves?" I asked Ned, because I hate myself. And that is how we ended up going to his job, getting a huge old truck, schlepping the huge truck back to The World's Fucked-Upidest parking lot WHICH WAS SO FUCKING ANNOYING OH MY GOD I HATED THAT FUCKING NEVER-ENDING LOT WITH PEOPLE BACKING OUT AND ENTIRE FAMILIES STANDING UNMOVING WHILE PEOPLE TRIED TO BACK OUT AROUND THEM parking lot.
We schlepped the huge, old, heavy pieces into the truck, drove it home, parked horrifyingly on the narrow street in front of our house and I was CONVINCED someone was gonna smash into us as we were moving the furniture.
We then schlepped it all up the stairs to our porch, then up the stairs to our room, which took forever because TALL OH MY GOD TALL FOUR POSTERS TALL, and also HEAVY HOLY SHIT.
I was covered in sweat by the time we got all the pieces to the bedroom, where I tried to clean it all. "Why have you made it all slippery?" groused Ned, right around the time I discovered the tallest part of the posts came off.
"Goddammit," I said, holding about three feet of the bed in my hands.
"GodDAMMIT," agreed Ned, screwing the slippery heavy pieces of the bed together.
What had started out as a delightful afternoon of antique shopping like we were a couple of old queens ended up with us doing manual labor and swearing a lot. Finally, FINALLY, after a trip to Lowe's and a swearfest when Ned broke off one of the ornamental metal parts that's gonna require a soldering tool, FINALLY, we lifted the box springs up, and sweated and grunted and carried on till we got the mattress up there, too.
And that is when we discovered we had the tallest bed ever invented. The Princess and the Pea's bed was shorter. It's the Mount Everest of beds. Holy shit, that bed is tall.
Tall. Not short, is what we've got in the bed department.
"What the fuck are we gonna do?" asked Ned, whose temper was much shorter than the bed. "I guess we can hire sherpas to get us into bed at night," I said, because let me tell you who was in hysterics. YOU'VE NEVER SEEN A BED SO TALL. In fact, if it's cloudy right now, you might not see us up there at all. Remember in the dorms, when some people made lofts? We totally have a four-poster loft.
"Have you tried addressing your nightstand?" I asked Ned, from my new perch high atop Greensboro. When I reach down to get anything, all the blood rushes to my face.
"How are we gonna have sex?" I worried. We're four inches from the ceiling fan now. One false move and we're decapitated. Talk about giving head.
Did you ever see Love, Actually? Remember that one couple who were stand-ins for dirty movies, and their whole part in the movie is scene after scene of them, fully dressed, pantomiming various sex acts? That was Ned and me last night. Can we do THIS without being decapitated? How about this? For some activities, Ned's gonna need Pinball Wizard shoes.
So that's my tall tale about our new bed, and I hate to be short with you. Hey, if you want to stay over, we have a tent you can pitch right under our bed.
At least I have somewhere new to store my suitcase.
From on high,
June
