The Night the Bed Fell

( ... with apologies to James Thurber)

As I have stated elsewhere in this blog, I believe, I am an ardent fan of James Thurber. Very few people can make me laugh, consistently. I have never appreciated jokes the way I should, and I find humor to often be too predictable to be truly funny. Thurber, for whatever reason, consistently hits my funny bone. So, this morning, when the bed fell, I immediately thought of his story, “The Night the Bed Fell.”

Unfortunately, in my case, there was none of the accompanying madness and mayhem that James recounted. In fact about the only similarity between his story and mine is that a bed did, indeed, fall. I was not in either bed when they fell. In my story no one was in the bed. The reason for the fall was totally predictable, however. In an effort to lift the bed high enough to fit a trundle underneath, my friend’s father had raised it up on wooden legs (which reminds me of a song we sang in church during my growing up years when I was less heathen and more faithful, but that’s another story and has nothing at all to do with this one).

Since I agreed to work in the French Quarter both yesterday and today, I asked if I might stay last night in the “former slave quarter apartment” my friends rent just around the corner from the gallery. With their usual generosity they assured me there would be no problem with that arrangement. They had assured me earlier that a new bed had been purchased to replace the one that was too hard for anyone to sleep in comfortably. I had assured them I never slept in the old bed, anyway, but had actually found the hide-a-bed to be more conducive to a good night’s sleep. They took that as confirmation of how badly they needed to replace the bed.

With all of these assurances, I was confident of a good night’s sleep.

Imagine, then, my surprise when I entered the apartment and discovered a bed that had been raised to dizzying heights. I thought, momentarily, that perhaps it was a new rendering of the Princess and the Pea, but I immediately scoffed at the thought. Anyone who knows me knows I am no princess. With or without peas.

It quickly became clear the modifications had been made to accommodate a trundle with an additional mattress underneath the big bed. Closer inspection revealed the modifications were dependent on the integrity of a couple of two-inch square supports, approximately 10 inches high, under both legs at the end of the bed. The headboard end was more securely supported with brackets and braces and serious wooden boards.

It was also clear that one would need a short ladder just to get into the bed. Had there been a ladder readily available, I may have actually been tempted to try sleeping at loftier heights. The pause to look for said ladder was just long enough to convince me to sleep again on the pull-out sofa.

Shortly after awakening this morning, and after my shower and the first cup of coffee, the bed fell. One of the sticks supporting one of the lower legs cleaved in two and that corner of the bed crashed to the floor.

That’s all. Nothing was broken, otherwise. No persons were injured. I don’t even recall my heart racing. I think I may have expected it. I think I may have been disappointed otherwise.

I do wish there had been dogs to bark, maybe a scent of camphor, a little hysteria or cries of “He’s dying!”; and I would have loved to have had a pile of shoes to throw into the hallway. But, then, no one can tell a story like Thurber.