You didn't think that was all of my weekend, did you?

We also had a minor furniture emergency. Considering that we really only had a camp chair and a queen-sized inflatable bed that counted as "furniture", this is indeed impressive.

As previously mentioned in my diary, we were having bed troubles. (It was an Eddie Bauer Queen Size double-height inflatable bed.)

We were sort of waking up inside the bed because it let out so much air overnight.

If I hadn't known better, I would have said that this is what airbeds do.

But we did know better. The bed had been doing FINE for 3 whole weeks! It was even some semblance of firm when we woke up!

But at some random point, the bed decided it had been through quite enough of that, thank you.

The loss of stability in the double-height bed overnight was causing us to sleep fitfully - not to mention the fact that neither of us could sleep as an independent unit, since we were both immediately rolling into the center of the bed.

"Oh, hello, Hunter. Fancy meeting you here in the squishy middle of our pathetic 'bed'."

Sigh.

We decided to take matters into our exhausted hands, and we took the bed back to Target on Saturday morning. As expected, they accepted our return without question, despite the face that the bed was so poorly re-packed that the original box was ripped in several places.

There were no similar models on the shelf, but they found 2 more in stock in the back room. 3 stockboys later, we had a new inflatable bed in-hand. (We also bought a TV stand - be still my heart!) Rather than stop at home to set it up, we went to work, because Hunter had a meeting, and I wanted to do a few minor check-ins as long as he was going.

That evening, at 7:45, Hunter drove me home, and we unpacked the spoils of our trip. He returned to work, and I stayed home, where I proceeded to unpack the bed.

However, when I plugged the bed pump in, it sputtered and made a high-pitched grinding sound.

Alarmed, I stopped the pump and checked the connections. Fine, nothing obstructing the valve. Let's try again.

This time, when I turned on the pump, the lights in the apartment surged, and the pump made a low grumbling sound. I smelled burnt...something. I immediately pulled the plug from the wall.

I called Hunter at work. "Hunthunt...when you plugged the first bed into the wall, did it make odd sounds?"

"No...what's it doing?"

"Making strange electrical grinding sounds and draining the power in the apartment."

Seeing as we were bedless, Hunter left work "early" (this meant 9:30 on a Saturday night)and rushed home, where we ran the pump one more time.

It started smoking.

Soooo... we packed it up hastily (and even worse than the first time) and Hunter made a fast exchange, snagging the last of this model of airbed right before store closing.

We unpacked it and plugged the airpump in.

It shorted out, immediately dimming the lights in the apartment and then began smoking.

I screamed in frustration, and Hunter threw the pump on the porch, where it was less likely to set the apartment on fire.

We slept on the floor that night.

(On the bright side, we did have an easy way to start a fire if we wanted! Yay!)

Sunday morning, we threw the fucker into its box (at this point, we didn't even bother to "try" and pack it nicely) and took it back to Target.

We did not ask for an exchange.

Then we proceeded to Emeryville, fighting the SF traffic on the way. Tensions were high - after a week of bed-induced insomnia and general poverty, we were not in good shape. I know I was definitely weepy and puffy-eyed upon pulling into the Ikea parking lot.

Ah, Ikea.

This is essentially the only Ikea in Northern California.

And there are a hella lot of people living in California.

It's a little chaotic in there.

Anyway, long story short, we decided on the only mattress that we could transport in our own car - the Ikea foam mattress (Sultan Wintergreen or something.)

We ALSO picked up 2 chairs AND an end table!!

Just to make things somewhat more complicated, as we were wheeling our cart out, we discovered that the parking garage fire alarms were going off, and the sprinklers in one area of the garage were also set off as a result. 2 fire engines came, and a few employees came to reroute traffic.

(Most customers didn't even notice the fucking fire alarms. Thank God it wasn't a raging inferno or anything, or they'd all be a bit worse for the wear.)

Oh, and the rest of the security guards were staking out a suspicious abandoned Ryder truck in the parking lot.

I guess we should have warned Ikea that we were coming and bringing our luck with us.

Anyway, fitting the queen-size foam mattress in our car was something of a bitch. But we made it, and we got it home, and now we have a mattress spread out on the floor of our bedroom.

It cost about $100 more than the inflatable bed, but it's so much more ... stable. And it doesn't deflate, and it is not (to our knowledge) capable of setting itself on fire.

So we survived that little caper, and we have an almost-bed now. Plus chairs. I like chairs, in general. They're great for sitting on.

In SimCompany terms, our comfort levels were way low. Maybe even red. But now they're sort of a pine green, and that's better than nothing.

End Weekend Part 2.