SLEEP EZE

New Mattress at 20 hours

It came in a long cardboard box, a curled up tube that held a modern-day mattress, one that is slated to take 24 hours to blow itself up but is already lopped over the sides of the bed. You think that any moment now, you'll have to exclaim, "Thar she blows!"

You can order anything nowadays, and the mailman will put it on your doorstep, even if it weighs 100 pounds, and how you get it through the door and into a designated room is your problem. After all, you dare not go in a store because of the dread virus and purchase something you can't tuck under your arm and walk out with. However, you don't have to wear a mask in the vicinity of the object left at your door.

You look at the cardboard tube and gauge your pushing/pulling/hoisting strength and decide to put the object on a rug, and with the help of at least one other person, pull it down an interminably long hall, muttering under your breath. Tools needed: scissors to cut through a sheath of hard plastic; butcher knives; wire cutters; good teeth.

When the heavy plastic has been butchered, you unroll a piece of flat cloth that looks like an army bedroll that has been to Afghanistan and back, hoist it onto the bed, and leave it to rise.

Directions inform you that this object's process of becoming a usable mattress requires time, much like making yeast rolls. You give the piece of soon-to-become your place of pleasant dreams a pat and leave it overnight, commenting to a friend that the way it's rising and left to its own devices, it will soon touch the bedroom ceiling. You're already calculating the cost of fitted (?) sheets and wondering if the blow-up mattress company manufactures one-size only bed coverings.

When morning comes, the mattress already resembles a low hanging cloud, but after consulting directions, you see that at least eight more hours are required for the object's maximum blow-up.

"It's going to take over the room," I tell a friend standing beside me.

"Nonsense, it has only risen about eight inches and will probably be the most sought after bed in your house once it reaches full capacity."

"But what if it decides to deflate when someone lies down on it? Think of unsuspecting guests who come for a visit?"

"They won't stay long, and isn't that a blessing in disguise?"

You look at the object on a steel bed frame that is rising toward the ceiling, walk out of the room, and gently close the door behind you.

It will be a long wait, but you know you aren't going to be the first one to lie down on it—no way you're ever going to be that sleepy.

 

 

A RAINY DAY RIDE

A rainy Louisiana day seems to be the ideal time to write about trips most of us can't take because we can't be exposed to people who may have the dreaded coronavirus. However, I pulled out a small stack of old Ford Times (a now-defunct publication) I'd ordered a few months ago and engaged in a pretend trip via "A Slow Train in Tennessee" that made a round trip to Harriman, Tennessee on the Tennessee Central Railway, circa 1956.


The trip was a full-day, round trip train ride that began on First Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee, cost the traveler $6, chugged through the Cumberland Plateau, slowly, ever so slowly, and stopped only for food since the train had no diner. The painting* that accompanied the Ford Times article reminded me of a train ride I once made from Ahwaz, Iran, in the southern desert province of Khuzestan to Tehran, Iran. I spent an entire night looking down at deep valleys and wondering if I'd come to a plunging end on the narrow track that snaked through the Elburz Mountains.


I enjoyed the Ford Times issue that included an article about the Tennessee Central Railway and a sudden stop a TC train made in Baxter, Tennessee back in the mid-1950s. As it chugged into the station at Baxter, an aged Model T pulled up to the station on three screeching tires, and an old-timer climbed out, explaining that he'd had a puncture of a tire that he'd "only used five years," and three tires would do for a while. He ran over to the train and handed a smoked ham to the conductor, who promptly handed the breathless old-timer a sack of plug tobacco in exchange. The train pulled out, resumed its slow speed, and chugged down the mountain on the Cumberland Plateau. I assume the old-timer made his three-tire journey home, probably grumbling about the puncture of a five year old tire but enjoying a good "chaw" along the way.


Although this article refers to the Tennessee Central, I thought about another slow ride I'd made from Atlanta, Georgia to Lynchburg, Virginia on a train that inspired the question, "Have you ever 'rid' the old Southern?" That ride included a group of young adults from Emory University in Atlanta who sang oldies like "Dinah won't you blow" ALL night to entertain my restless daughter who traveled with me.


A slow train ride during a gentle rain would be a prized experience for me right now, and I'm wondering if the old Southern is still operating? Probably not. The latter incident took place when Stephanie, my oldest daughter, was three years old. She's now sixty.


*Painting by Corydon Bell in Ford Times, April 1956