A few days ago, someone gave us another king size bed – for which we were very grateful! – but it became an occasion for some re-arranging at our house.  We ended up putting our old king-sized mattress in Michael’s garage bedroom – along with a couple of other mattresses, plus the bunk beds he has been using.

His bunk beds are something of a family heirloom.  They were made by Grandpa Les, my mom’s husband, when I was the pastor of FBC Beggs, Oklahoma, years ago when our older kids were preschoolers.  Grandpa Les has since passed away, but the bunk beds have been special to us, since he hand made them for the kids.  They are VERY sturdy, and very heavy.  They survived the growing up years of both Paul and David, and have now been passed down to Michael, who has used them through all of his elementary years. 

Now, with Michael getting a little bigger, we were faced with some re-arranging.  I asked him if he wanted to sleep in a king-sized bed, and he was very excited about it.  But what about Grandpa’s bed?  We were in quandary.  Then Michael had an idea: we can put the bunk beds side by side, and put the king sized mattress on them!  That would be the best of both worlds!  Great idea, I thought!  So tonight, we started the project.  Little did we know …

For starters, it was not going to be as easy as just taking the top bed off, putting them side by side and putting the mattress on – because when we moved to our new home here on Mission Lane, our son David put the bunk beds together – wrong.  He put the head board upside down, somehow.  We couldn’t even figure out how it worked that way, but it did.  So we decided to take that bunk apart and put it back together right.  Easier said than done. 

I have always said that couples should hang wallpaper together before they get married, because every malevolent trait they possess will rear its ugly head during the project.  This episode was not quite up to the “wallpaper” standard, but it was close.  Grandpa made that bed to LAST – it was heavy!  At one point I didn’t realize that Cheryl had already unfastened both bolts on her side, and when I took mine out the whole heavy board fell on my shin.  (I do not curse, but it would have been a good occasion for such!)  And since the bed was home-made, when we began to put the side boards back on, it was very difficult to line the bolts back up with the openings in the boards.  They barely fit into the other end as it was, and after we had taken them apart, we could NOT get both bolts back in to either side of the bunk rail.  We took – literally – ONE HOUR working to line up ONE of the bolts!.  It was ridiculous.  Cheryl tried; I tried; one held the screwdriver and turned while the other barely moved the board to try to get it to line up.  Then we switched roles.  But all our labor was in vain.  I get so annoyed at things like that; I am not mechanically inclined anyway, and I cannot STAND wasting time.  I just kept thinking of how many other things I could have done during that same time period.  It was very frustrating.  (Cheryl later said that she was quietly taking David’s name in vain during that fiasco!)  After the hour, I finally said, “Ok, this will work without that other bolt; let’s move on!”  So we did.  But it was about to get worse …

We took the two king box springs and put them on the two bunks – and they didn’t fit!   Not one way, and not the other.  Maybe you are laughing because you already knew that they wouldn’t fit.  We didn’t.  We stood there, galled at how we had just wasted all of that time and effort.  Michael laughed and said, “Dad, you are just like Cary Grant in one of those old comedies – you went through all that, and it didn’t work!”  I was glad that he could see the humor in it!

So what do we do?  I said, “Michael, what do you want: the bunk beds, or the king-sized bed?  You evidently can’t have both.”  He said he wanted the larger bed.  I thought, that will be good, because we can take the bunk beds apart, and put them in the attic, where they will wait until Paul, David or Libby have kids.  Yes!  This idea was sounding better and better all the time!  We will store Grandpa’s bed – and then we will give the bunk beds to the kids, and THEY will put them together next time!   I was already savoring the thought of that. 

We still had a lot of work to do: we put the bunk beds, and the extra mattresses, and some other things, up in the attic, which was a lot of work.  But all the while I was smiling, thinking of passing the bunk beds down the kids.  I can just picture Josh putting them together, with Libby trying to help – or David and Ashley putting them together upside down again!  Yep, I think this was an inspired idea.  These bunk beds need to go to the kids – for our grandkids.

 Somewhere up in heaven, I think Grandpa is smiling!