Box springs eternal.

We haven't had an actual bed since the Ikea one we bought back in 2000 or so responded to being rogered upon, not even with unusual vigor, by collapsing promptly and decisively into a pile of wood bits. Since then it has been just a mattress and shitty box spring, for nine-plus years.

Box springs are strange. They cost real money and act as if they are marvels of springy engineering, but actually as far as I can tell they're made entirely of cardboard, junkyard debris, and fusible interfacing. They do hold together better than the Ikea Slat Heap but it's all an illusion. In the end what you have is a roughly box-shaped thing holding its innards, but to no supportive purpose, rather like the frog in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek after the giant water bug has injected it with liquifying toxins but before it's been sucked dry.

Anyway, all this time we've been talking about getting a bed, eventually, some kind of platform bed, we thought, so that we could do without the box spring/frog corpse. It could look chic and support our weary backs and even provide some sort of headboard against which we might prop ourselves while reading in bed, as one likes to do. But we're picky and beds are expensive, so instead we've generally contented ourselves with looking at beds for sale, mulling over the question at length, and ultimately rejecting them, a soothing routine that has sustained us for many turns of the calendar.

But then! At last! We decided to commit! We picked out a sleek modern thing with a simple headboard and a sturdy base made of cunningly designed springy steel mesh set into a wooden frame, plunked down the credit card, and waited for delivery.

Isn't that nice? (If you hate it, I don't really want to know. Also, rest assured that our bedding will never look half as minimal and severe as this; imagine big disheveled heaps of pillows and sheets and blankets instead.)

Because solid wood and steel are rather heavy and I am rather pregnant and it is rather snowy and our bedroom is rather on the second floor, we paid the extra fee for premium indoor delivery service.

+

At the beginning of the week, the nice people call and let us know that it will arrive on Friday. Friday morning, therefore, we leap into action, dismantling the box spring and its frame and turning the mattress on its side against the wall all ready to be flopped onto our new assemblage of modernist slabs. We both set about working at home.

Doorbell rings; cat loses mind. Steve shuts cat in bathroom; cat flings itself against the door and howls. I go sit in the bathroom with the cat. I am helpful! It's soothing, sitting in a warm small room with a reassured small animal. It sits on the book I am trying to read.

Noises float up from below. They are not the sounds of well equipped movers smoothly bringing new furniture into the house and bundling packing materials away. They are the sounds of Steve doing something effortful. 

I emerge to learn that the shipping company has sent only one person, a driver rather than a mover, and that she and Steve have been dragging enormous, heavy boxes of bed parts though the snow. Both look exhausted.

"This box was damaged when they got it. Do you want to take a look?"

Inside are some very sturdy looking steel pipes wrapped in packing paper. Nothing looks scratched. We agree it looks okay but write "box damaged" on the manifest before signing it. Steve looks at the other, very large, box, which contains the main vast slab of wood and steel. "Do you think you might help me push this up the stairs?" he says to the driver. Her face is filled with despair.

"Oh, god, let the poor woman go," I say. "This may be what we thought we were paying for, but it's obviously not what they paid her to do."

She flees.

"We may as well put the parts together down here, where there's more space. Then maybe we can entice someone to help us move it upstairs afterwards." We clear all the furniture out of the way--gosh, beds are big!--and begin unpacking.

There are no instructions. After a phone call to the manufacturer, we obtain some online. That is when we realize that something has gone even more wrong than we knew.

These pieces are supposed to be identical. The discerning eye will perceive that they are not quite.

The shop that sold us the bed was very, very apologetic. They have refunded our shipping fees and tell us they are having the replacement piece sent as quickly as possible. In the meantime, our ground floor is rather dominated by bed parts and we are sleeping on a mattress on the floor. It's all sort of larky, though, so that's all right. We pretend it's the Kon Tiki, only with better blankets and a raftboard cat.

However, I really stand in awe of the machine responsible for munging that box. What do you suppose it was? It must have exerted considerable force, but it's done it so very neatly. There isn't a crimp or scratch in the metal, which is why nothing seemed particularly out of place when we just looked at the pieces out of context.

Gundam?

A stampeding elephant? Bender?

?

(God that was long. Sorry.)

Comments

[Drew]

My mattress and box spring have been resting on the floor ever since the crappy frame they came with collapsed under the stress of some rogering years ago. Stupid beds, you'd think that they'd be tested for rogering. Sleeping on a mattress and box spring resting on the floor has left me feeling somewhat not adult, but not so much that I have actually done anything about it.

[Ray Davis]

My narratological research has shown that the perceived adventurousness of a pointless adventure strongly correlates to the length of its relation.

We got our first real bed with headboard last year. I can't tell you how much it's changed our lives!

[David Jacobs]

I like those Globus chairs.

[Lindy (mum)]

The fellows who came with my bed- and had been paid the extra money to assemble it upstairs "white glove delivery" - were pretty glum about actually doing it, and professed some surprise.
However, there were two of them, and they were burly. So I just kind of stared until they did it. I felt obliged to tip them, and later felt a mug for it, what with the huge extra payment and the surliness and whatnot. On the other hand, it's lovely. And I'm sleeping in it.

[heebie-geebie]

Oh god. Now I'm fearing for our new bed, which is going to be delivered any day now.

While yours is totally gorgeous and I love it, I'm dreaming of all the extra storage space afforded by our choice. I'm pretty sure I'm over-fantasizing how transformative it will be. But no box spring!

[Anil Dash]

"rogered upon" is a phrasing that does elicit a genuine lol. As reward, here is your ASCII parts drawing:

^
_

[Edward M.]

The redfox -- illuminatrix of contemporary vocabulary to the benighted septuagenarian.

[LizardBreath]

I've mentioned this recently in the Unfogged comments, I think, but if you're going to have a new baby and a new mattress at the same time, invest in a waterproof mattress cover. If you hadn't thought of this already, (which you likely had) you'll thank me.

[redfox]

Drew: But you are always so prompt about furnishing your abode!

Ray: I am delighted to hear that. I look forward to feeling that it was well worth the hassle.

David: Indeed, so do I. Globus for all.

Heebie: I'm sure it will be fine. Plus storage! (Did it come yet?)

Anil and Edward: It feels rather daring to use the verb "to roger" outside of the phrase "vigorous rogering". Just how non-vigorous can it be, I wonder, while still qualifying as rogering?

LB: One is indeed on our list, I think thanks to your very own recommendation.

[Edward M.]

Cocktail: 1 oz. sloe gin; 1 oz. Southern Comfort; 1 oz. Pol Roger Champagne -- The Sloe Comfortable Roger. L'Chaim!

[Amy]

#1: I have started making noises about buying a big kid bed. Justin would be content with a pile of blankets on the floor. We're getting no where fast.

#2: Ahhhh! The frog sucking bug! That's all I remember about that book and you managed to work it into a blog post. Brava!

[ben]

Those ASCII parts are highly schematic, to the point that I'm not sure which is which.