Rusty Bedsprings by I. P. Freely

I was laying in our king sized bed and enjoying the roominess of it. Mark on the far side, seemingly ten feet away, Chandler laying across the bottom, Bette between our heads. None of us were touching each other, it was as if we had an acre of bed to share. Then after awhile, something started to bother me. Why should my dogs have it better than I did as a kid? We didn't have an air conditioned bedroom with expensive beds when we were kids. In the summertime we would swelter up in those bedrooms, with only a window fan for relief. For beds we had nothing more than glorified army cots. My brother and I shared bunk beds that consisted of "mattresses" that resembled the padding movers use, and "springs" that were little more than wire woven into large squares. The beds sagged quite a bit, and the older we got the more they sagged. Worse for my brother was the fact that I was in the top bunk and those wire squares that were holding me up there were slowly rusting away. When it became apparent that I was going to continue to slumber in the deepest of sleep while my bladder continued to party all night, my mom dismantled the bunk beds and arranged them side by side. This pleased my brother and made it much easier to get to those damp bed clothes in the morning. Honestly, I never slept in a decent bed until I was in my twenties. Which reminds me of one other bedtime horror story when I was a kid. It was the time my dad and mom took us on a little trip to Springfield Illinois, and Saint Louis. It was a rare treat for us kids especially because for the first time in our lives Dad sprung for a motel. In fact he got two motel rooms. Two rooms to divide between two adults and eight children. So this is how the accommodations worked out. Mom and Dad in one bed, my four sisters in another bed, and my three brothers shared the single bed room. As for me, I got a bed all to myself. Well sort of a bed. Dad pushed the two luggage racks from the two rooms together and laid a blanket and some pillows across them. It really wasn't so bad. It only sagged a little more than the bed at home, and the springs weren't rusted out.