A small comedy of errors ensued at our house last night.
My significant other returned from a five-day boys-only sailing trip around the Swedish archipelago. In other words, a five-day booze fest shared with 5 other men. I only spoke to him about 90 seconds each day since the cell phone coverage is crap out there, and since I am not really a phone person (I dread picking up the phone and making calls. More often than not, I let calls go to my voice mail. The irony that I work in telecom giant and hate talking on the phone is not lost on me.) I was treated to the Drunk Call-you know, when someone of the opposite sex rings you at about midnight, waking you up from a perfectly good dream, to tell you how much they love and need you and that none of the other girls/guys there are anywhere near as cute as you, and all this done with a serious slur to the voice? And they spend a lot of time conversing with their drunk mates on the side (which always winds me up) and then trying to get said mates on the phone to talk to you, to help illustrate just how earnest the originator of the call is in their alcohol-fumed persistent dedications?
Yeah, I got one of those.
So he returns, his clothes smelling like whiskey, peanuts and salt water, and takes a shower. He then wants to show me how much he missed me. Yup. I got called upon to perform.
He drags me upstairs and pushes us both on the bed...whereupon the bed breaks. With a crash. The mattress is tipped crazily off the side of the bed, and it is pretty clear that the metal slats along the side of the rails have given up their will to live and will only allow us to have the mattress on the floor, cum college days. I am laughing my head off, and we stand up. I look at his face, and he looks a bit puzzled. He looks at me.
"What have you been doing while I was away?" he asks in a confused voice.
Hmm, curious-he is wondering what shennanigans I have been up to in his absence, which is not at all what is on my mind. I was thinking about if perhaps a crash diet is not in the cards for me. No one likes to feel like they broke a bed. That has serious Weight Watchers implications. I start to envisage a demolition team needing to come break down the walls in order to get me out, since I am too fat to get through the doorways, as I am (in my mind) swollen to the size of Veruca when she turns into a blueberry in "Willy Wonka and the Choclate Factory". Minus the blue skin of course.
"Nothing! I have no idea why the bed broke!" I reply. And I really am telling the truth. I may not be well-known for my full-on veracity skills at home, but I seriously have no idea why the bed broke. That is Man Work to figure that one out, I believe. If it is going to require heavy lifting, cordless screwdrivers, and the like, it is Man Work. Hey man, I'm a convenient feminist. I just have limits (Like burning my bras. Why would I want to do that? I love my lingerie. Seems so counter-productive.)
"Are you sure you don't know why the bed broke?" he asks again.
"Of course I am sure. Oh, unless it was when I had sex with the entire local football team on Friday."
"Very funny."
"Or Sunday, when we had the league championships in midget bowling, which took place in this room. Boy, was that one crazy afternoon, man!"
"Ha-ha."
"No dear, nothing happened." Unless you count numerous rounds of self-relations to the image of Colin Firth, but I didn't think I got that wild during them. Pretty freaky to go into horizontal aerobics if you're just there to please yourself. I then pulled out the ultimate defense: "It's just an IKEA bed, that's all. They break."
And that one made sense to him. Bed got fixed (using strange S-shaped IKEA definition of a wrench/spanner and some wooden pegs, no need for Man Work after all), action was had, and I am only mildly under suspicion still.
-H.
Posted by Everydaystranger at July 22, 2003 09:35 AM | TrackBack