You might say I framed myself.
My new bed with the adjustable frame has been the darling of my life since I bought it a couple of months ago. I have been pushing the button to raise the head of the bed to read or watch middle-of-the-night television offerings. Sometimes I raise it just because I can. A little bit of power is so nice, until it isn’t.
On a recent night, I had watched a rerun of “The Golden Girls.” I love the girls and have fun imagining what it might be like to be living now with a roommate with whom I once shared a dorm room or a New York apartment. What would our lives look like now, if for some reason we were living together? Maybe not so different from the girls. Any of the women I know would be happy to meet me in the kitchen for cheesecake in the middle of the night, a recurring GG theme.
Now, with my bed in a permanent sitting position, I pondered who I should wake up at 2 a.m. for help. My little brother, of course. I babysat him for years and attended all his Little League games, so he owed me, and I knew he had the same bedframe as mine. He had even told me I should call him anytime if I had trouble using it, words he would live to regret.
He texted me sketches on his smartphone of how to lower the bed. The problem was I never put the app on my phone because I didn’t want to have another thing I couldn’t work on the phone. My bed came with a small tablet screen remote that had all the info I needed. I have been using it for the last couple of months, yet suddenly on this night, I couldn’t find any way to relax my bed. Or myself.
Really getting tired at this point, I tried sleeping in the sitting position to which the bed was locked, but I was a failure at that, too. At least I had a little creativity left. I positioned myself horizontally under the comforter and folded my body into a fetal position, the only way I could fit on the bed. The next day, I texted my daughter, who had spent considerable time showing me how to use the remote.
She arrived after work with one of those “Really, Mom, everyone knows how to do this” looks.
“I’m going to be very upset if you fix this in two minutes, after I was up all night working on it,” I said as she lifted the remote from its seat of instructions that came with the bed. No sooner did the words leave my mouth than I saw the head of the bed go down flat.
It was less than two minutes.
“Maybe just sleep flat tonight,” Sara said sweetly.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com