I have this bed that I must describe for you. It’s not a simple metal frame with an attached head and foot-board that I see often. It’s also not a mattress and box spring on the floor like my college days. No this is a Bed, with a capital ‘B’.

First, it’s old. It’s over 300 years old and it’s been in my family the whole time. My Mom is an antique nut. For years she and Dad ran their own antique store, so she knows her stuff. However, this bed wasn’t one of those unique finds she was always making in her shop. This one was commissioned by a long-ago relative at a time when mass-producing things wasn’t even an idea. It was also, apparently, a time when things were made big because it’s huge.

Second, it’s big. It’s somewhere between a queen and a king size in width, but it was longer — which makes getting a mattress/box spring for it nearly impossible. Luckily, I found a place in Ohio that will build one to order. I was living in Columbus and dating a lovely lady whose family owned a place that made their own mattresses an hour to the west. She was telling me one night about a special order from some Hollywood pseudo-celebrity. Something clicked and I called my Mom the next day. At this point, the bed had been in storage because the mattress had fallen apart, and she never could find a replacement.

I remember the bed from my Grandmother’s house. To a child it was amazing! The top of the mattress was taller than I was and bouncing on it was so much fun. It was the only place I knew where I could really bounce on the bed. At home, I always was told I would break my bed. At Gramma’s, I was told to bounce away because nothing could hurt that bed! It was also about a foot off the ground, so I found the best place to hide because I could slide under it with ease – although my Mom could as well so once she discovered my hiding place it was a lot less effective.

I didn’t realize why she would say that I couldn’t hurt it until after she passed, and I helped my parents disassemble it for moving. It was not only huge in size, but the frame was solid oak and even just one side rail took two people to carry it. The cross beams were solid as well. The headboard was large and the foot-board was several inches thick and as solid as the rest. It took a dolly and three people to move the headboard; it was freaking heavy! When we took it apart, which involved a mallet for knocking out pegs, I realized it wasn’t originally made for a box spring, but the addition of it is why the bed was so tall.

So now you have an idea of this bed. My folks used it until the mattress gave way shortly before they decided to retire and moved into a big RV and travel around the country. They sold their store to a couple of family friends and now they drive seemingly from antique spot to antique spot and are always sending interesting things for the shop. Of all the antiques, a number have stayed in the family, the number one item was the bed, or I should say The Bed.

Instead of putting it back in storage, I decided I really wanted it. It took several friends to help me move it and I had to ply them liberally with pizza and beer once we were done. All of them marveled at it once we got it back together and several of my girlfriends have slept in it and one keeps trying to buy it from me.

One day, during a rather energetic evening, we did the impossible, I heard a crack and didn’t know where it came from. My girlfriend, Lindsey, was on her knees and she was holding onto the headboard for dear life. We weren’t centered on the bed, but on one side when I heard the crack. I thought maybe the motion had caused the headboard to hit the wall. Which, if I were in a position to think at the moment, I would have realized how impossible that should have been. I mean this bed was solid! But at the time, I was behind her doing my best to stimulate her to new and even more active heights.

At this point, there was a second crack and one side of the bed suddenly tilted and tossed us both to the floor, to our great surprise. We looked at each other and started laughing.

“Oh my god, what happened?” Lindsey looked as shocked as I felt.

“I think we broke the bed.” I must have had a shocked look on my face because I would have sworn it would take a tactical nuclear weapon to scratch it.

As much as I would like to say we continued like nothing happened, but the floor was cold, and we were laughing too hard. While I was down there, I looked at the damage, still not fully believing it. I tried to push up the bottom corner, but it barely budged. Lind gave me a hand and we saw the leg, the solid oak leg that looked thicker than my calf actually broke.

Further examination had me truly disheartened. The pins holding the side to the headboard had sheared, the ones holding it to the foot-board, one broke, the other popped out and probably needed to be replaced. I was brokenhearted. Lind seem to take it in stride and loved telling our circle of friends how we broke the bed. Every time she told the story for the next week, my heart clenched.

My main worry was trying to get it fixed. I called my semi-regular handyman, Ryder, and all he did was cluck his tongue a few times and tell me I needed a specialist to do it right. He set up a few blocks to at least right the ship while making all sorts of noises about what a splendid piece of furniture it was, like it was dead and never to be resurrected. He did give me a few names to call.

The first call pissed me off so bad that I actually hung up. For the record other than unwanted spam calls, I have never hung up on anyone before, especially someone I called. When I tried to describe the bed and what was wrong, he actually — I am still steaming over it. It went like this:

A gruff, deep male voice said, “I’m don’t understand what you are after, how about you put your husband on and he can explain it to me, little lady!”

I was so incensed I couldn’t even respond. I slammed the phone down so hard I thought I had broken the screen. How dare that misogynistic asshole talk to a potential customer like that! It took me an hour before calling the second number. The guy I talked to next promised to come out in a couple of weeks, which didn’t thrill me but I was happy he was busy, it spoke good things about the quality of his work. He was primarily a carpenter, which concerned me a little. Ryder was pretty specific about needing someone special.