I had an event the other night with our adjustable bed.
I have re-written that sentence four times so far. I had an encounter. An incident. A surprise. A shocking surprise. A skirmish. Something that woke me the hell up. Something that brought me bolt upright except that I couldn’t actually get upright.
Maybe I should just tell the story.
My husband had a cold and wanted to sleep sitting up. As I am the local champion at falling asleep, it didn’t bother me that the head of the bed was sharply elevated for his comfort. When I partly roused in the deep night, from an Alpine dream, I reached out a hand to find him gone. I had slid down in my sleep and was now curled up tight on the bottom half of the bed, wrapped in sheets, head pressed against the sharp incline. I groaned, wanting to stay asleep, and wanting the bed to be level. But I was folded up on a ledge between the bottom of a mountain slope and a precipitous drop to the bedroom floor. Hardwood.
I reached around the edge, fumbling toward the nightstand. The controller was not there. I groaned again and, seeking to sink back into sleep, turned onto my other side, ear pressed against the mattress. Also, it turned out, pressed against the controller, which had been lost in the bedcovers. My heavy head pressed the button marked “massage”, eliciting a loud rumbling noise directly into my right ear, completely filling the cranium. RRRRRRRRRRRRR…
Deeply confused, I patted the covers in increasing desperation. No controller. I struggled against the sheets, startling our old cat, who leapt away with an indignant look. RRRRRRRRRR…. Staggering to my feet and stripping the quilt away to the floor, I could feel sleep departing. No controller. The bed was a grotesque shape, a bit like a taco shell, if a taco shell was queen-sized and seismic, rumbling and vibrating. I yanked the sheet to the floor, totally awake now. And there it was.
But the room was dark and the buttons are small and the location of the massage button unfamiliar. And after I found it (RRRRRRRR…off!) and leveled the bed, and stashed the controller on the nightstand, and located my husband sleeping in a living room chair, sleep had fled to wherever it goes. I would have gone after it if I knew. I remade the bed, climbed wearily back in, under the steady gaze of the cat, who settled across my legs and promptly went back to sleep. Entirely unconcerned about my rest, he purred insensitively as I lay awake thinking about the intersection of technology and comfort, and the utility of gadgets, and also, with envy, the soft and comfortable old cat, dreaming away the rest of the night.
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