“IT STRIKES” Again: Christmas visits, and best two out of three with the Mighty Futon

[The following column was first published in December, 2002. The futon still sits in a back room and I must wrestle with it whenever company stays over night. It usually wins. gah]

Christmas visits, and best two out of three with the Mighty Futon

I get excited when I hear company is coming. I looked forward to visits from family and friends as a child and I thoroughly enjoy the experience as an adult.

I anticipate the ribald stories that will be told, the variety of foods that will be served, the many adventures that we’ll plan together and getting to stay up way past bedtime.

Usually when company comes to stay for a weekend, I must complete several tasks, none that I totally begrudge, most within my level of ability.

I collect smelly running gear and damp towels from the door handle and door frame of our bedroom and from the crossbar and handlebars of my road bike that hangs from the ceiling in the spare room. The bike goes to the basement, the dirty laundry gets added to my deep, smouldering pile beside the freezer and clean sheets are readied for the futon.

Then a sharp whistle blows to signal the start of an exhausting round of WWF wrestling between the lumpy over-weight futon and an aging middle-weight with a bad back. At present, the futon and mattress are ahead on rounds, six to three, but I’m learning where their soft-spots are.

When Pat and I bought the futon a few years ago the kindly store manager demonstrated how easily “an average person” could open it out (a deft, effortless lift with one finger) and flip or smooth the mattress without falling heavily to the ground. I must have been distracted at the time by screeching brakes outside the store on Richmond St. at Oxford.

I can faintly remember how to open out the futon (usually with both hands, both feet, and the help of both neighbours, Gary and david) though the maneuver is more of a twist, slip, grab, miss and noisy fall. And that’s just trying to get it to lie flat.

The subsequent wrestling match to smooth the mattress takes me to a whole new level of physical exertion and embarrassment. To disperse and flatten out the lumps from one end of the mattress to the other is supposed to extend its life. Why do I get the feeling that in order to extend the mattress’s life I have to threaten my own?

I try to approach the mattress from an angle to catch it off guard. If I can grasp the unsuspecting slipcover by one corner and fling the mattress to the floor in one fell swoop I count it as a victory. Jumping on the lumps is child’s play after the initial confrontation.


[“Leave it flat,” I say. “I feel like a nap.”: photo by GH]

I have been told by a few people, including Gary and David, that if I read the straight-forward instructions from the file folder in the top drawer of the cabinet beside the computer in the back room, the job of preparing the futon for company would be a good deal easier.

Many household jobs could be easier with instructions. I know it’s true.

If I got into the habit of reading instructions then the clock on the VCR would work, I wouldn’t have to pull the cord on the lawnmower 20 times to get it started, my alarm clock would say A.M. in the morning, I could play three CDs in a row on the stereo and the latch on the gate in the backyard wouldn’t stick.

I appreciate helpful suggestions (I seem to get them all the time), but I still think I can even the score with the futon and mattress when family and friends come to visit during the Christmas season.

***

Please click here to read more “IT STRIKES” Again.

.