New Mattress

The other day I was thinking about how best laid plans just don't manage to work out very well. Back sometime in the 80's, my ex and I rearranged the bedrooms for the kids and found we needed another twin mattress. And my mom just happened to have one in her basement that was in pretty good shape. Great!



That was our first mistake. We borrowed a pickup truck from a local tavern owner who we knew quite well. We chose a nice Saturday afternoon and drove out in the country with two of our children to my mom and step-dad's house for the retrieval.



My step-dad was watching his favorite team-UCLA on TV when we arrived. I said hello to mom and we proceeded to check out the mattress in the basement. While we were down there, my ex and my step-dad started arguing about basketball and being the trouble maker my ex was and the volatile person my step-dad was, it was inevitable that threats would be thrown. When my step-dad said he would hit my ex with the fireplace poker, my mom stepped in and put a stop to all of it.



We left with the mattress and bad blood all around. If only that would have been the end of the story, but no--there's more!



The second mistake. The mattress was placed in the bed of the pickup and an old orange blanket was thrown over it for protection. As we were driving along, I looked in the rearview mirror and thought the blanket was floating around. But that wasn't it--it was flames I was seeing. I had thrown a cigarette out the window and it landed on the blanket and you can guess the rest. I pulled over screaming, "The truck's on fire!" My ex jumped out and while he was trying to get the mattress off the truck, I was running to a nearby house so they could call the fire department. It just so happened the man who answered the door was a volunteer firefighter who had an extinguisher. He geared up, came out and put out the fire.



Then we had to pick up the burned mattress, go to the dump, pay to dump it there, go with hat in hand to the friend to tell him what happened and apologize. He said forget it, it was worth it for the best laugh he'd had in a long time. Then we had to go shopping for a new mattress.



The only mistake we didn't make was that we never told my mom and step-dad what happened after we left with the mattress.

Until next time---