My Wayward Son Carries On, In an Effort to Lay His Weary Head to Rest

Tuesday, I found out that the bed my mom and dad slept on for 45 years is a queen size. Not king.

Okay. So Val is not the sharpest tool in the shed. Why would I have been concerned about my parents' bed, anyway? I had my own room. I wasn't a scaredy-cat, crawling in with them bawling in the middle of the night. I was in their room plenty, though, in the evenings, laying on the bright red carpet, listening to 45s of the Partridge Family on their stereo while I did my homework. Never mind that I had to take off an Eddie Arnold LP and add that little contraption to make the 45s sit in a stack and drop down one by one. I had bigger fish to fry than their bed.

Genius needs a bed for the house he will be renting for the next three years. I told him he could use his grandma's, but it was a king. The one from my childhood bedroom is a full size mattress. Genius, the little Goldilocks, professed that a king would be too big, and a full would be too small. He needs one that is just right. A queen size.

So...Tuesday, as we cleaned out the closet in the bathroom we used to share, Sis found a bunch of queen size sheets, still in the original packaging.

"I don't know why Mom would have queen size sheets. They won't fit anything here. But I'll take them for Genius when he gets a bed."

"Are you sure? They're only flat sheets. Nothing fitted."

"He won't care. He has one set. When he washes them, I'm sure he can use the flats to take their place."

We moved on to Mom's room, to finish off the jewelry and the dresser. As I sat on her sewing machine chair, I noticed that the bed looked the same size as my bed at home. "I think this bed IS a queen. Don't you?"

"Yes. A king looks like a big square. Not a rectangle."

When Hick arrived for cleaning out the basement, I told him to send Genius a text that the bed was a queen, in case he though he might want it. Later, after we got home, Genius called to talk about the computer he's building for me.

"So, do you think you might want that bed from Grandma's house? It's a really firm mattress."

"You swore that bed was a KING."

"I thought it was, until I really looked at it today."

"I saw another one for sale today that's only been used in a guest room. But I can't get it there from here."

"You don't want to use a mattress that's been in somebody else's house! You don't know what kind of guests they had. Maybe they invited homeless people in on cold nights. Unwashed homeless people. With Grandma's bed, you might be getting 45-year-old dust mites, but at least they are FAMILY dust mites! Besides, it's really only about 28 years of dust mites. Because once Grandpa died, Grandma didn't sleep in it anymore. That bed has been vacant for 17 years."

"Stop. You think that's GOOD?"

"You could put a mattress cover on it. A crackly plastic one. Like a bedwetter might use. And when you take it from here to your college house, we can stand it up on the trailer, so it can breath."

"Or maybe we can just tie one end of it, and let it flap like a magic carpet."

"That too."

"Or I could just get a piece of cloth the size of a queen bed, and stuff it with those red shop rags, and stitch it closed, and put it on a frame that's made from recycled pallet lumber covered with oil."

"I guess you'll be needing the sewing machine, too."

"No. I was just pointing out how I could make one from stuff that Dad recycles. I want the bed."

That's the good thing about 20-year-old college boys. They're younger, and they have stronger vertebrae.