A Homeowner’s Comedy of Errors

I love old houses. I love my quirky old house.

This is Craigdorrach Castle in Victoria, Canada, not my house, which was built in 1951.

I decided that for the month of April I’d sleep downstairs and refrain from climbing up and down the stairs. I did this because the pulled muscle in my left leg is ridiculously slow at healing. I have a bicycle desk downstairs and some strength-training equipment also downstairs, so I figure I can do this without becoming completely sedentary.

Downstairs, I had more than one choice of beds. I have a quality twin-size mattress in the spare bedroom… but it didn’t have box springs because by the time the bed was assembled, the box springs were in the meditation room and under my circa 1992 futon. With bad knees, I now prefer having the futon raised off the floor. Because of this arrangement, I decided I’d sleep in the meditation room, a small space with a highly effective electric wall heater.

In my twenties and early thirties, I slept on the futon directly on the floor. But… I was much younger then. Two nights in a row, I struggled to sleep and felt like the princess from “The Princess and the Pea.”

I knew the time had come to stop procrastinating and buy box springs for the bed in the spare bedroom. After two nights with poor sleep followed by two nights with better sleep thanks to melatonin, I went to the nearby mattress store and purchased a set of box springs.