So after a longer-than-planned hiatus, I thought it was time
I finally posted something. I’d promised
Legally Blonde a nice little recap of my 2013 (and may still get around to it)
but decided my shitty Tuesday this week could not go by without a mention. So here goes nothing…
It all starts back in January last year (so in a way I’m
totally smashing that recap at the same time) when I was moving out of The Bra
and back to The Beaches. Since DTM
already had a bed, my queen bed seemed suddenly unnecessary and I needed to
come up with a plan for said bed. The
plan seemed foolproof – hire a van, get The Marge to drive it to The Bra, pick
up the mattress and bed frame (dissembled into 4 big wooden pieces, 3 metal
poles, a bunch of slats and a box of legs and screws and other things), drive
it 3 hours north to Nelson Bay, dump it in The Marge’s garage (the mattress
made its way inside the house) and drive the van back to Sydney. And as far as I recall that all went very
smoothly.
So I spent a year on DTM’s ridiculously large mattress (with
so much extra latex cushioning it requires “super queen” sheets, yeah that’s
really a thing) and a less-than-impressive ensemble base. I appreciated that his mattress was newer and
fancier than mine (though am still not entirely convinced that it’s actually
more COMFORTABLE than mine) but I longed for my nice white wooden bed frame, to
which every other piece of furniture in my room was bought to match.
Out of the blue when DTM suggested we move out this year (to
be fair I had been suggesting it for a long time but lost hope that it was
actually going to happen) I briefly thought maybe my bed would get to make an
appearance at the new digs. I soon
realised that wasn’t going to happen as I certainly couldn’t be bothered
driving all that way to get it when we already had to take a trailer load from
Forestville and could just take DTM’s bed from there. When moving day rolled around DTM’s Version
of M-Dizzle helped us out by driving the trailer and providing some much needed
muscle. When we got to Neutral Bay, The
Bass Player was also on hand to help us empty the trailer and cars. I was left to man the trailer while the boys
spent what felt like an eternity carrying the oversized mattress up to the 5th
floor. I still maintain that I had
measured the lift and measured the mattress and it should have fit but they
prefer to just outright disagree with me instead of admit they may have wasted
a lot of time and energy carrying it up the stairs when it could’ve just taken
a quick trip in the elevator.
After that lengthy effort, they concluded there was
absolutely no way the base was going to make it up the stairs. Since it was heavier and less flexible than
the mattress, they figured it was not worth attempting as the mattress had made
its way up with lots of bending and resting on heads. I also agreed that its lack of flexibility
meant it wouldn’t have fit in the lift (unlike the mattress!) so it seemed like
we were gonna be sleeping on the floor for a while. And then it hit me…this was the perfect
opportunity to get my bed back in my life!
So after a week and a half of sleeping on a mattress on the
floor (which admittedly was almost normal bed height given the thickness of
DTM’s mattress) I made plans to head up to The Marge’s and see how much bed I
could fit in my car. I had thought I
would drive up on Saturday after work,
have dinner with The Marge, spend the night and drive back sometime Sunday
so that the 6 hours of driving wouldn’t seem so bad. Unfortunately they had some guests staying
from Queensland and subtly suggested that I wasn’t really welcome that
weekend. And that’s how Tuesday came to
be such a shitty day…
Just before 5pm on Monday I left work and got in the car to
begin my long commute north. I was about
45 minutes into my drive when I started hearing a strange noise in my car. Granted, that’s not all that strange for my
lovely 1991 mazda but since I was driving 110km/hr and still had a good 2 hours
to go I thought I should try and locate the source. I assumed it was my air con but sadly the
noise continued even when that was turned off.
I soon noticed a bit of plastic trim flapping around in the wind (not a
completely new occurrence but more on that later) but that also didn’t seem to
be the cause of my mystery noise. It
sounded like it was coming from behind the dashboard somehow and just as I was
getting concerned, it stopped. For the
next couple of hours the noise was on and off but I got used to it and just
turned the music up and hoped for the best.
I was semi concerned that my flapping plastic trim might
finally detach (despite my best efforts of taping it up months earlier) but I
was determined to get there before dark (since my dash no longer lights up,
driving at night is a bit scary) so pushed on and ignored the flapping plastic
outside my window. My car and I made it
there just before 8, still able to see the dash and with plastic trim hanging
on by a rubbery thread. It was a rather
stressful drive and I was ready to just have a nice home-cooked meal before
heading to bed. Just as The Marge was
serving up the spaghetti , The Sailor casually asks me if I remember how to put
my bed together. I assured him I did,
and proudly recalled buying a set of Allen Keys from the hardware store in
Collaroy when I needed to dissemble it 2 years ago for the move to
Maroubra. He went on…
“I noticed that the slats are only half a bed length…”
“Yes…”
“So is there something that goes down the middle to hold
them in place?”
“Yes, a long black metal pole with plastic bits coming off
it for the slats to slide into”
“Right, I don’t recall seeing that…”
And just when I thought my afternoon/night couldn’t get more
painful, it had. I wasn’t too worried
initially as I assumed they just hadn’t looked for it and it must surely be
somewhere in their garage. After all,
where else could it be? We had our
dinner, watched Revenge, and then had
a quick look in the garage. The metal
pole was nowhere to be seen but The Marge was confident we’d find it in there
in the morning, or possibly somewhere else in the house. I was less confident.
I woke up early on Tuesday morning to try and find my
missing pole and get on the road while it was still early. The Marge made me a lovely breakfast and I
tried my best to be positive about my bed.
When she left for work it was up to The Sailor and I to find the missing
bed part. It was as we looked through
the garage for what felt like the millionth time that I realised all 3 black
poles were missing, not just one.
Suddenly things were looking even worse. After rearranging the garage and checking all
3 wardrobes upstairs and under the beds we came to the conclusion that the
poles were not there. Where they were
was anyone’s guess.
Then I had to decide whether or not to take the remaining
parts of my bed back to Sydney or keep them stored in Nelson Bay. Since the bed was pretty useless without the
3 black poles, I figured I might as well take it to Sydney to be useless with
me, rather than leave it in their not-so-reliable storage facility. And so with a bit of seat adjusting and rope
fastening, the 4 wooden pieces of my bed and the bunch of slats were secured in
my car and ready for the 3 hour drive back to Sydney. Thanks to a roll of insulation tape which
lives in my glove box, my plastic trim was also once more firmly attached to my
car and by 9AM I was ready to leave.
I hadn’t long been on the freeway when my plastic trim
started flapping once more. The mystery
noise had also returned and I decided to stop revive survive at the petrol
station/McDonalds half way point to assess the situation. I got my tape out of the glove box and stood
there in the car park taping my car back together. I got back on the road and hoped that my next
90 minutes would go by without drama. No
such luck. The mystery noise that seemed
to come from behind the dash continued as my speedo needle seemed to be shaking
around the 110 mark. I assumed it was
just because it wasn’t used to these speeds and the car itself can barely
handle it so I didn’t think too much of the shaking. It was when it started randomly jumping to
150 (a speed which I definitely wasn’t going) and then back to 110 that I
started to get concerned. It happened a
few more times, I was happily cruising in the middle lane between cars when all
of a sudden my speedo would say I was going 40k faster than I was. I doubt my car is even capable of going that
fast if I wanted it to.
Needless to say I was relieved to be off the freeway and
back to a more normal 60km/hr. I was on
the home stretch and what else could possibly go wrong? And that’s when it started to rain. It was one thing trusting my insulation tape
to hold my car together when dry but it was quite another to trust my flapping
plastic and tape concoction in the rain.
And so there I was, after 2 and a bit hours of driving with some large
useless wooden bed parts; I had my window partly wound down and my arm sticking
out holding my car together while rain streamed down my arm and into the car. at traffic lights I would briefly bring my
arm in, dry it off and readjust before having to stick it out in the cold rain
again.
Driving was ok but indicating was a challenge given my
indicator is on the right of my wheel and I was driving left handed while my
right hand held the plastic trim in place.
I finally managed to get home just before midday and to top it off
discovered that The Sailor had packed my bed parts into the car in such a way
that they had spent the previous 3 hours scratching each other. And so I was home finally with a cold wet
arm, some scratched bed frame parts, some very loosely attached plastic trim on
my car and a very noticeable absence of metal bed poles.
To top it off, on Monday afternoon before I commenced my
drive north, I noticed a big white scratch on my car and dinged up looking
white car parked behind me on the street near work. So thanks to the driver of BK65PM for
contributing to my shittastic 24 hours.
*nb: this photo was taken months ago, it no longer looks this slick as the plastic has broken into multiple pieces and I don't have all of them anymore
