Bedtime Story

Our bed was old and outdated and I dreamt of one that would bring fresh life to the bedroom.

After searching online and in home goods stores for a new bed – American made of real wood-- I thought I could finally rest when I found one in a store that boasted “bench made to order” furniture. The bed even had a romantic name: “Bella”.

The young saleswoman, whose plastic appearance, mannerisms, and stiff rehearsed talktrack inspired my husband to privately nickname her “Robogirl”, assured me that they were making my bed to order.

I imagined the grizzled artisan, his well-worn leather tool belt, and rough, skilled hands, receiving the handwritten order for One Bella All Wood Bed, carefully assembling his materials at the bench to begin making it for me.

Robogirl explained this process required time, so the bed would not be ready for three months.

Because custom crafting is, of course, an art.

Yet I was a bit surprised when the first bill installment arrived a couple weeks later, even though we were months away from seeing the bed.

The billing department explained that to begin the custom bench crafting, they needed to begin the payment process. Surely, I didn’t expect them to assemble all the materials needed and begin making a bed for me, without offering payment?

Which seemed reasonable. 

After a couple months, an email announced the bed was ready for delivery.

I imagined the weary artisan, packing it off onto a truck, shutting the light over his bench, satisfied with a job well done.

The store laid out my assignment in detail: To have an empty bedroom ready to receive BELLA.

They explained the delivery team had a solitary job: To deliver and assemble the bed. They would not be tainted by removing our old bed. They required a blank slate on which to deliver and assemble the new, virgin bed. So, as a people-pleasing rule follower, after our last sleep on our old bed, we dissembled it and lugged it downstairs hours before BELLA would grace our threshold.

The barking of our dogs announced the truck’s arrival. The paperwork was all in order: BELLA had finally arrived!

I watched as it was lowered it from the truck – the wood headboard just as I remembered it – beautiful!

Wrapped in clear plastic, three delivery men carefully carried the headboard through the front door.

That’s about when the joy sucking began.

BELLA could not, would not, go up the stairs to our second floor bedroom. BELLA is not oversized, and our stairs are straightforward vanilla colonial, neither undersized, nor spiral. But try as they may, three delivery men could not wrangle the headboard Any. Which. Way. to fit up the stairs. She just did not want to go.

Together with the deliverymen, we thought we'd found a solution: There was a metal bracing bar across the length of the headboard between the two legs, held by four small screws, which stood between us and getting the headboard up the stairs. A phone call to ROBOgirl at the store assured us that removing this bracing bar been done “at least a dozen times”, and the deliverymen should simply remove the four screws of the bar to aid BELLA’s path to the bedroom, where they could re-attach it.

Only the deliverymen -- concerned about staying in their assigned lane of “DELIVERY”-- felt the need to call and ask their supervisor for permission to use a screwdriver to remove four screws to release the bracing bar. However, permission was DENIED by the Delivery Supervisor who deigned that doing so could risk peeling off some of the finishing paint.

OK this was understandable, as I conjured the image of my artisan hand-applying the paint to Bella, in loving strokes.

I called back ROBOGirl to explain the Delivery men couldn’t, wouldn’t, remove the bracing bar to complete the delivery. She offered that “a tech”, back at the warehouse, could easily do it.

Screwdriver in hand, I was about to solve this myself when she said that our touching it would invalidate any warranty. Rule-following mode activated, and I returned to obedience.

She advised the delivery crew should return BELLA to the warehouse, where this final act –the removal of the BELLA’s chastity bar – would allow them to consummate the delivery.

Regardless of how close we were to getting Bella to the bedroom, there would be no screwing, or rather unscrewing, that day.

We lugged our old bed back upstairs and reassembled it. All I wanted was sleep, hoping to forget my fever dream of a new bed.

When ROBOgirl called with a second delivery date, I asked about BELLA’s birthplace of origin, and reminded her of my initial request for MADE IN USA. She explained that BELLA was part of a collection that is made overseas.

At this point we were too invested, or shall I say...already "in bed" with Bella to begin again.  Robogirl was probably banking on that.

I wondered: Was the three months for "bench crafting" more likely spent with Bella probably suffocating at the bottom of a container ship bound for the US?

A week later the dogs announced the truck’s arrival, again.

As I opened the door the lead deliveryman belted out an announcement:

“Well, they’ve cut your headboard in half.”

I assumed he was joking and watched the corners of his mouth for the start of a smile. But he just looked disgusted.

He said I should come out to the truck and see for myself.

And indeed, Bella’s two long legs, part of the wood headboard, had been cut off at the knees. A short board was attached to each, holding the two cut halves together. Punishment for refusing to go upstairs.  

So after three months of “bench sculpting”, Bella arrived safely in the US only to meet up with one crafty warehouse tech who independently decided the best solution was the fast, extreme and violent one: Just hack off the two legs!

We refused delivery of Bella. The delivery man nodded in approval, and she was returned to the truck.

No one could explain why the plan we had agreed to—simply unscrewing the 4 screws holding the bottom bracing bar— had changed.

The store requested a meeting so we convened at the warehouse: Robogirl, her manager, and the saw-wielding “tech” (I would like to think management had dealt with the tech separately.)

I asked whether HACKING THE LEGS OFF THE HEADBOARD had invalidated the warranty, yet they assured me it did not.

They circled their wagons and as a united front insisted the headboard would be solid with the addition of a couple of braces, and that cutting the legs was the only way to get the headboard up the stairs.

At that point it seemed I wasn’t the only one utterly exhausted by the ordeal.

So -- far from getting a bench-crafted bed Made in USA-- we had waited three months for one that was immediately disfigured on arrival by independent thinking and American ingenuity.

Then the manager negotiated a significant discount with us, which quieted us down.

A few days later, on her third trip, Bella finally made it upstairs to our bedroom.

And with all the bedding in place, one might never guess that with a dream, imagined characters, a villain, and a victim, that bed had been the leading character in her own bedtime story.