It's OK. I have a spare.

This is the end.

Right here. How it all plays out.

I didn’t picture it this way. I envisioned something more along the lines of a graceful exit, quietly surrounded by loved ones when I was, oh, say, around 101.

Peacefully IN my bed...rather than UNDER it.

***

“There’s a good chance I didn’t think this through properly,” I muttered to myself, half squashed beneath my bed’s large, memory foam mattress.

“Uh, a ‘good chance’?” my conscience yelled back at me like an angry biker chick who just discovered her Chinese tattoo really meant “Fluffy Butternuts” instead of “One Tough Momma.”

Like all great trials, I started out with good intentions: painting the trim in the master bedroom.

And like all great wives, I was gonna do it without informing my husband.

In my defense, I knew how that conversation was gonna go....

Me: “I’m going to paint the trim in our bedroom.”

Husband: “I am putting crown molding up. I’m just gonna rip out what’s in there now, so don’t waste your time.”

Me: “With all due respect, my dear husband, you’ve been saying that for five years. There is a good chance, by the time it really happens, pigs will have discovered a way to fly.”

Husband: “Speaking of flying animals....” and flips me the bird.

So, excuuuuuuse me if this was a conversation I wished to avoid.

As soon as his car pulled out of the driveway for a weekend trip out of town, I grabbed the paintbrush and headed upstairs.

***

Like many couples, we purchased new bedroom furniture when we got married.

I’m not sure when this tradition started. Perhaps with the lovely Neanderthals who felt the cave needed a little sprucing up, an upgrade from the musty, stuffed mammoth wedged in the corner.

In any case, people get married. People buy new furniture. It’s universal. Who are we to argue with the universe?

But what did we get? Furniture so large that a friggin’ mammoth could have slept on it without sending it crashing through the floor.

Not that I minded, mind you. Normally the large furniture doesn’t cause any trouble.

That is, until I attempted to move it by myself. Because I couldn’t very well have asked my husband to help me do it before he left ‘cuz I was in stealth mode and this was a top-secret undercover make-over mission.

But when I looked down at the bed, hands fisted on my hips, and thought, “I’d have better luck moving a mammoth,” I knew I was in trouble.

I leaned down, grabbed one corner of the bed frame, took a deep breath then...did absolutely nothing.

‘Cuz let’s be honest.

I haven’t lifted anything heavier than a Snickers bar in six months and there was no way in hell my puny, flabby grandma arms were gonna lift a large bed frame with a name-brand, memory foam mattress and platform system weighing a gazillion pounds.

So....I took a brief moment to throw up ‘cuz the only heaving I accomplished was in my stomach. 

And once feeling returned to my beleaguered arms, I decided to take a different route and remove the mattress first.

Smart, right?

Well, smart would have been thinking to do that BEFORE I threw up, but let’s not digress.

New plan: I’ll just heave the mattress onto its side and lean it up against the dresser.

I gave it a giant heave...and blew out a kidney.

But it’s OK. I have a spare.

Uh, note to self: One might move a large memory foam mattress an inch or two.

But one does NOT heave a large memory foam mattress anywhere.

But after taking into account leverage and fulcrum points (how’s that for fancy physics talk, my friends?)...I managed to get the mattress lifted half off the bed.

But then I was distracted by the half-eaten Snickers bar I had apparently shoved under the bed once upon a time and completely forgotten about.

Without thinking about the consequences, I reached down for the candy bar and....

***

So this is where you find me, half trapped beneath my mattress, patiently waiting for my husband to return home.

There is a really good chance he’s gonna be really mad. But all is not lost. 

At least I’ve got a snack while I wait.