The Princess and the Pea

The Gift Fairy has struck again -- this time not quite by surprise. The Gift Fairy and I set out to purchase our new bed last Saturday at the mall, we just didn't think it would arrive so soon. The estimated delivery time was 7-10 days; we got our bed in 3. Tre cool. That's right kids, observe and drool -- the Select Comfort, Sleep Number 5000, King-Sized, Pillow-Top, dual air chamber control with wireless remote is mine!!!!! ... I mean "ours"...

And it's a dandy. We opted to put it together "our"selves. The saleslady said she put hers together herself. Well, I'm a do-it-yourself-er girl with a husband who'll let me. Perfect! A Tuesday night project! She said it would take a shrugging 45 minutes. She is a liar. It took me/us two-and-a-half HOURS. Tef lugged in all the boxes from the curb to the house. I unpacked it all, hauled it all upstairs and put the most of it together. Tef would wander in every now and then and give me pointers about using the rubber mallet correctly so as not to warp the plastic beams (very helpful with his "guy" wisdom) or to hold something steady whilst I whacked it into place. He was also very useful as making things line up "flush"; a gene men are apparently born with.

Yes, you read that right -- the foundation is made of plastic. The kind used to make steps for step aerobics. Other than the wingnuts used to keep the bed feet on, there's no miscellaneous hardware. Just plastic beams and struts, foam "siderails" to create the walls of the "mattress" and overgrown PFD's to serve as the inner-air chambers. Once you've got the PFD's inflated and laid the foam padding on top, you zip on the mattress cover (which is nice and plush) and put the sheets on. Tef was all hands for the last of it, saying things like, "Can we get in the bed now? and "How much longer 'til we can get in the bed?" and "What comes next? Oh... then can we get in the bed?". He helped me "construct" the mattress from the ground up and then tidied up some loose email ends while I sheeted, pillowed and quilted the bed (the latter a new purchase of heavenly goose-down).

Neither of us spoke as we wearily made our way under the Egyptian cotton sheets. There were only relieved groanings and contented sighs. I tried to read some of "Moby Dick" to let myself unwind before lights out, but somehow my limbs were suddenly too heavy and I was unable to lift the 50-pound hulk to my chest. No one spoke after lights out. I haven't slept so well in.... years? Probably. And I've heard it only gets better the longer you sleep on it.

Of course, this makes us "bed snobs" on top of everything else. Now we're going to be hopelessly spoiled and refuse to sleep anywhere on vacation that doesn't have one of these beds. *SIGH* The cost of being discriminating I guess.

Speaking of sleep, no one warned me about the crazy dreams you have when you're pregnant. Crazy meaning "bizarre" and "disturbing". Last night was one such episode. Thankfully, I'm not alone:

We were leaving town after a series of comic misadventures, and it seemed
to be the end of the movie-- you could tell because the camera's point of view
raised up high, showing the small car moving erratically across the road as if
to indicate a humorous struggle inside. Then for some reason Kris Kristofferson
turned the car around, got out a pickaxe, tore up the road, and revealed a
cable, long hidden. When he pulled it a door swung open on a shed across the
road, and a movie projector began to play. There was no screen. It was clear to
us all -- in an instant -- that the projector was somehow communicating with the
ancient wrathful spirit in the woods, and we could sense its presence moving
through the trees with murderous frenzy. That’s when we ran.

Unlike most dreams, I could actually run. I heard the screams behind me. I
made it to a house. As I gripped the knob I turned around --

And woke up in a state of such total terror it took a minute, maybe two, to
calm down my heart. I laid in bed and put it all in context -- bits and pieces
assembled from "Lost" and "The Ring," it seemed. I went back to sleep and was
rewarded with a great, multi-plot dream full of adventure, culminating in a dash
to cross a highway. The traffic was so constant that people accumulated on the
median, waiting to run. I struck up a conversation with the fellow next to me,
asked where he was bound.

"To see the dress of Jack Murtha's first wife," he said, as though I should
know what that meant. He had the shiny face of a devout pilgrim. Later he drew
me a picture of a bunny. A while later the median strip turned into a bar, and I
was presented with a bill for 75 bourbons. I woke up in a state of such total
terror it took a minute, maybe two, to calm down my heart.

So the day began.

The highlight, really. Is there anything more enjoyable than a truly good dream?
Years ago I dreamed of a shopping arcade in the basement of a late 20s office
building -- in the dream it was the 40s -- and I can still see the place. I wonder
if we remember all our dreams, somewhere; it's a haunting thought to realize
that somewhere in your head, side-by-side with the encoded perceptions of things
that actually happened, there are countless hours of things that never
did.

I once read that if you take the average sleep a person gets in a lifetime and break it down in to actual dreaming, the average is seven solid years of dreams. You just know that in some parallel universe there are tortured creatures trapped in the dream world and forced to reside there as punishment. Because even a good dream is torture -- you can never experience them as reality (no matter how "real" they feel) and you can never prolong, continue or revisit them.

And with that, I am going back to bed.