22 January 2004

The Murphy Bed

So I wasted the day yesterday waiting for my bed to get here. It was very Thurber-esque. I thought about the memorable opening line: "I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell on my father."

We had to read the Thurber story as part of the Norton Anthology in seventh grade introduction to Literature. . In this one, the celebrated humorist re-created a raucous night of cascading hilarity from his youth. It involved a bed, of course, but that was only the plot mechanism. My bed was coming not from Ohio, but from Florida on a tuck, via the terminal at Manassas Junction. They told me it would arrive from the warehouse sometime between eight and noon. I dutifully took my shower and got ready for work at the appointed hour and began to wait. Since I am moving in Big Pink, from the rental on the Fifth Floor to the owner-occupied unit on the First floor, adjacent to the pool, there was plenty to occupy me. I shoveled some books and papers around, always surprised by what comes to the surface.

The bed I was waiting for would have fit in the Thurber story. I currently divide my paycheck between my ex and two prestigious land-grant colleges in the Middle West, well north of Columbus. I don't mind. But it means I am temporarily a man of limited means. Accordingly, the little condo I was able to purchase here in Big Pink is limited to a single room, large kitchen, and on the delivery of a Murphy bed, a classic piece of Americana. The technology is simple and ingenious, the way things used to be when we lived in a mechanical age and nothing was solid-state.

If I put a conventional bed in the place it would be exactly like living in a Holiday Inn. Awkward to entertain.

"Hi! Welcome to the place, here is my bed, how do you like me so far?"

There is an alternative, of course. I could put in a fold-out couch and it would be just like the stateroom back on the aircraft carrier. Which is certainly a way to live, and I have done my years of that. But in my experience the mattresses the fold are awful and I am too old not to have a nice firm rational mattress. So I looked to another way to solve the problem.

The patented Murphy System seemed to meet my requirements. The key is that the bed contains a real mattress that is mounted to the wall on a clever pivot. You can lift it up at the foot with a single finger and it smoothly glides up in an arc flat against the wall. The I ordered comes in rich genuine melamine and features bookcases that slide closed to completely conceal the mattress and make it seem that my sitting room is just that. I will also have some place to put the books so I can look at them. So it was Victorian technology to the rescue and that is exactly where my experience began to diverge from the quaint story of folding beds in long-ago Columbus, Ohio.

I ordered the thing in October and it is just scheduled for delivery this morning. As I shuffled things I glanced at the clock. Nine o'clock came and went. So did ten. I made a peanut butter sandwich at noon. It wasn't Thurber now. It was Waiting for Godot.

I hate moving. What's more, I had a couple appointments in the afternoon and was getting anxious as I ferried loads of jetsam down the elevator. Or was it flotsam?

Damn.

I checked the e-mail periodically, business and private, to see if anything interesting had come in since I began my Motor Freight vigil. I found this from a pal on the West Coast. He was referring to my musings on the crowd who attended the State of the Union:

"Vic,

Thanks for sharing the memories. We had far fewer brushes with power in my family.

Most notably was at American Embassy Moscow, winter 1995. The wife of an Assistant Naval Attache and her seven-year-old daughter stood outside their apartment where the President's limo sat waiting for its passenger. It was cold, of course, but they were used to it, unlike the visiting American delegation.

Then a rush as the security detail and aides scurried to the waiting motorcade. As he strode toward the waiting Cadillac President Clinton noted the woman and her daughter. He stopped in front of them and smiled. The young girl, suddenly shy, looked down at her feet. The President offered his hand and said kindly, "Don't be shy." The young girl took his hand ... and connected for a second with the great one of the moment.

We won't forget that."

It was touching. I glanced at the clock and decided to wait a little longer on the Murphy bed. I wrote him back immediately:

Hey, thanks for that! I did not have any significant interplay with the former President, just a brush. Still, I was in town for six of his eight years in the White House. It was a trip, beginning to end.

He was an extraordinary politician, maybe the best of our age. He really had the touch and he loved showing it. I was a few feet from him one time. He was finishing a round at Army Navy Arlington. I don't know how he played, but that isn't important. We comped him the membership as we do for all Presidents. He shot a birdie on #18 as we were walking by in the parking lot. He signed his scorecard, making sure we all knew what he had just done. The other three in his foursome faded away, invisible. Then the President worked the small crowd of us crusty military types who spent most of our professional time pillorying his defense policies and the gays-in-the-military thing.

The retired Navy Captain I was standing with gushed at him. "We love you, Bill!" he shouted. The President grinned that boyish grin of his and moved on.

My buddy Loathed the man. Amazing.

Then the President walked away from us and worked a wedding party that was emerging from the Clubhouse. They must be the most amazing wedding pictures ever. As he entered the big black SUV I saw him huddled with his advisors, the politicians face put away, his eyes intense, angry as the convoy sped away. I am sorry he was a flawed human being. He really could have lit the skies. But I'm afraid sometimes I share more of his flaws than I would like, and not nearly as much of the divine fire.

And you know, he is only a couple years older than we are. He is going to be back. Mark my words.

Vic"

I finished the note and mashed the button. I was late again, wasted morning, and well on the way to a wasted afternoon. When I got home they told me the bed had visited the building shortly after my departure and then driven away again. When I talked to the Motor Freight concern they asked me if I wouldn't mind waiting all day again today.

I told them to call me at the office. Maybe they could use some of that solid-state technology and pick up their cell phone.