Delivery people work hard. In extreme weather like the heat wave we’ve been having, it’s even harder to haul items from one place to another. Of course this was the week I had my mattress delivered.
The two delivery men were early for the two-hour window, and got right to work. I had an additional challenge for them because I was unable to dismantle the old bed frames and headboards (if you recall from last week, I moved from a twin to a queen for the first time). The room best suited to a mattress of that size was the master room, which still was in the style of the old movies, with two twin beds reminiscent of the days when hubby had his space and the spouse had hers. In reality having one’s own bed can be a marriage saver when you think about trying to fit two sleeping styles into one bed in the first place.
This leads me to the question of why one cannot just push two beds together on top with a double sized box spring underneath, and each person can have separate sheets which divide in the middle? But that’s for bed developers and corporate analysis taking years and costing lots of money to accomplish. Meanwhile, millions of couples have issues with stealing covers, or being pushed to the brink of finding oneself on the bedroom floor. So much for advanced civilization in the bedroom.
The first fellow happily borrowed my tools and managed to disassemble the frames while his partner moved the old mattresses to the truck for haul-away. One headboard succumbed to the stress of the work (though I suspected it may have been ready to go before that anyway), and it broke at the joint where it was screwed in. However, I was looking forward to keeping just one anyway, so this worked to my advantage. Meanwhile I made sure the men were hydrated by offering them bottles of vitamin water.
The next–and hardest–step was to bring the box spring upstairs. Having moved a love seat from the second floor to the first about a year ago, I know that square shaped bends are the hardest to navigate with a long object, and this was no exception. The bigger issue was that, being a queen, it was nearly square, so there was really no long end to be had. As the partner rounded the landing, the top corner of the box spring jammed at the ceiling, and the first fellow was quick to comment. He said that I should give up and return the box spring, or risk damaging it and having to deal with the liability clauses and complications that would cause.
Between the “old mattress removal” and “installation” phases of this experience, I had asked this man how many jobs they had done that day, and he replied that they did seventeen. Hopefully it wasn’t his first seventeen. I brought up the fact that the angle of ascent was affecting how the box spring was progressing, and as we were discussing , his partner backed up, the angle shifted, and he continued bringing it upstairs. No damage done.
The set-up continued as the pair discussed the assembly of the new headboard and frame in what I guessed was a Russian or Ukrainian dialect. After the box spring was implanted in the frame, they paused while I placed the bed skirt, then they set the mattress on top and, with a tip in hand, I sent them on their way.
Now you may be wondering why I was generous. It’s because of their willingness to do this job when so many others shirk. Despite the glitches, they did arrive on time and they sweated and toiled and got the duty done. I simply made sure they had electrolytes to replace what they sweated out, and possibly dinner or a round or two at the bar later on me. I consider it fair.
Shortly after that I had my new bed made, and I knew I would never have gotten all that work done if not for skilled workers like those installers. Manual labor is what built this country, in good times and bad. Sleep on that.
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