Measure twice, cut once…naw, why bother.

I’ve always hated The Giant Monster. And in some inanimate way, I know The Giant Monster hated me too. I’m no animist, but I’m convinced it kicked me in the back on the way out the door for spite.

The Giant Monster (TGM) is a set of bunk beds we purchased eight years ago for our two daughters. The bottom is separate from the top bunk and it boasts a large lighted desk, generous shelving and a set of five drawers (it’s in excellent condition, if you’re interested).

Lately my teen daughter’s feet have begun to dangle off the end, and we decided it was time to spring for some new beds.

My husband and I were at a big box store last week and spied some Queen-sized mattress sets on sale. A big sale. A sale for suckers. On impulse, we decided to buy two sets, and sell TGM online. Impulses can prove to be  expensive.

We were quite a sight, driving down the road with both sets stacked in precarious fashion on top of a full-sized van. We drove with much fear and trembling and got the mattresses upstairs without too much difficulty.

The box springs, however, were too rigid to bend around the wall of our enclosed stairway. Silly us. We didn’t measure before we made such an impulsive purchase. If we had only bought doubles…

“Oh, well,” we said to one another. “We’ll find a solution later. Let’s just get TGM apart and put it in the basement until we sell it.”

Around 9 pm, I managed to help my husband get the heaviest piece from the second floor to the basement, but not before I felt something pull in my back.

At 4 am, I woke up in excruciating pain, but needed to pee, as all women do in the middle of the night. It hurt so much when I stood up, I passed out. When I passed out, I hit my head. When I hit my head, I triggered a dizzy spell (I have chronic vertigo).

A trip to the emergency room earned me some very effective morphine mixed with muscle relaxant and lots of sympathy, sprinkled with bits of “what in the @!#!* were you thinking?” I have not fully recovered from this incident, but I’m improving, thanks.

But, what to do with the box springs? Should we try and return the sets? The kids were already sleeping on the mattresses and loving them. Should we try ordering queen-sized box springs that come in two pieces? They would be outrageously expensive.

No, we made our beds, so to speak, so now we had to lie in them. One way or another, those box springs were getting upstairs!

“We just need a couple of inches,” we said to each other.

“Maybe if we remove one of the stair treads…?” suggested a recruit.

While I watched from the sidelines with my injured back and my whirling head, my husband took off one wooden stair tread, and then another, then another.

It wasn’t enough. The box spring was wedged in the stairway. I mean, wedged.

“What if we just bang off a little of the plaster on the ceiling?” someone suggested.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

After cracking a big hole in the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and hammering off the corner of the ceiling in two places at the bottom landing, and tearing off each stair tread AND riser, we finally got the box springs upstairs. A week later, we’re still in the process of repairing the drywall, fixing the stairs and painting. But we were committed to the mattresses, by dinghy.

When we sell our house, the buyer inherits a couple of Queen-sized beds.