My Marital Bed Is Broken

“An endless dripping on a rainy day and a nagging wife are alike” (Prov. 27:15, HCSB).

I began our marital relationship with a broken marriage bed. Let me explain. When we got married, we were given a decent amount of money as a gift. So, we decided to use it to purchase a new mattress. After looking at several different types, we decided on the Sleep Number mattress. We had a bit of a problem, though. It cost $2,500, and we were a bit short. We agreed to wait so we could save some more money. Six months later, I announced to Ron that we now had enough funds, and I would go ahead and get us our new Sleep Number bed.

This is where things got messy. I went online and stumbled upon a similar type of bed that looked like it had everything the Sleep Number bed advertised. It was called the “Sleep Mumber” bed and it really looked exactly the same! The best part was that the Sleep Mumber bed only cost $1,200, not $2,500. I thought, What a steal!

So, without letting Ron in on the change of plans, I called up the company and spoke to Luanne in customer service and ordered our new bed. It was scheduled to be delivered the next day. The next day, two huge guys knocked on the door of my second-floor apartment. No mattress—just two guys.

When they saw my stairs, they must have decided to give me the excuse that the mattresses wouldn’t fit through my door. Explaining this, one of the guys said, “Sign here!” and told me to come out to their truck. So, I soon found myself standing in the back of an unlabeled truck (which looked like it had just come from some back alley) wondering how in the world I was going to get this giant mattress up my stairs all by myself!

I told the delivery men that I would help but that they were not leaving until I got my bed. They didn’t agree, so after two phone calls to their manager, they brought the boxes up the stairs and into my apartment. Then I said to them, “OK, get started!” They both looked at me as if I was insane. “Uh, ma’am, we’re just the delivery company. We don’t install them.” Then they bolted out my door.

Here I was, stuck with these huge boxes in my bedroom and no bed. I thought to myself, “I can do this!” I got out a kitchen knife and started cutting away at the boxes. It contained a bunch of tubes, plastic bubbles and things that scared me. How was this mess going to provide me with “hours of heavenly sleep” like Luanne promised? I spent the next two hours trying to make heads or tails of the whole thing. I don’t read directions, so I just tried to make it up as I went along.

That evening, Ron came home to a whimpering wife surrounded by hundreds of bed parts. I knew I had to sweet talk my way out of this situation, so I yelled, “Surprise, honey! Our Sleep Number bed is here!” He wasn’t buying it, though, because he knew good and well they would have assembled it. “Kerrrrrrrrrriiiii!” he exclaimed. “What have you done?”