06 October 2008

moving up in the world

Let us shift our focus to a topic that we can all safely agree on: isn't it delicious to sleep up off the floor?

I realize that this is completely cultural. There is no real need to sleep on a sleeping surface that is raised off the floor. Here, at least; in other parts of the world there is the malaria mosquito, which lives within 18 inches of the ground, not to be confused with the cow mosquitoes in Southern Sudan that bit me through my jeans and through any gap in my raincoat and on my face, the only exposed part of my body. Those were some mammoth, vicious mosquitoes. (I call them cow mosquitoes because I was told that they could bite cows through their hide. See: mammoth, vicious, above.) Malaria mosquitoes, though, live close to the ground, so a raised bed would help.

One of the reasons why I survive well in developing countries is that I can tolerate a great deal. Discomfort, inconvenience, delay. I don't really mind them. As long as I am warm and there is prospect of some food at some point in the future, I can put up with most inconveniences. This is fantastic when I'm living in Rwanda and we are waiting for four hours on the top of a mountain for someone to come show us some possible goat stables. It's great when I'm using a pit latrine in Southern Sudan. It's perfect when that bed in Ethiopia doesn't really look or smell too clean. (I draw the line at cockroaches, though. I don't like cockroaches.)

It's not so great when I'm living in Gone West. In fact, it has gotten downright embarrassing. The other day when the topic somehow came up in a group setting, that I was sleeping on an air mattress on the floor nine months after I moved into this apartment, a male friend said, "Wow. You've been sleeping on an air mattress on the floor even longer than I did. And I thought I was bad."

This is not okay. I cannot be more of a slacker than a boy. A boy! You know how they are! Boys have two beers and a package of hot dogs in their fridge! Boys haven't cleaned their sinks since they moved in! Boys think a microwave is the only cooking implement one needs! (I just thought of some more examples, but it turns out they are all also true of my half-together apartment, like the books on the floor instead of on a shelf and the shower curtain still just the clear liner - but I did this on purpose so the bathroom would not look so crowded. It's not like I have roommates. No one here but me. A clear shower curtain is just fine.)

I am apparently living more haphazardly than boys. This is just not acceptable.

So yesterday I sighed and coughed up the money for a bed frame. I had to buy the kind with wooden slats because I have an odd aversion to box springs, especially the cheap kind, because they sound like cardboard every time you turn over and it wakes me up every time. Plus a mattress + box spring is so bulky. The rest of the world does not do this. They sleep on a mattress alone like proper human beings. It's so much more streamlined.

Then I forced a friend to spend two hours putting together this 1ke@ monstrosity. I love 1ke@ until I try to put the stuff together. The golf-elbow arm has not recovered. There is aching. There is paining.

But, whatever. I slept up off the floor on a real bed frame last night, for the first time in nine months in my apartment.

Too bad I still have an air mattress in the bed frame.

Baby steps.

(Just don't ask when I'm finally going to get around to hanging something - anything - on the walls. Sigh.)

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