Life as a Bell Curve: Theories that Kinda Make Sense

I don’t know that there’s any reason to try and put the mysteries of life into words.  Finer writers than I have given that a go (Balzac, Hemingway, Clancy, Grisham, etc.), but we’re never really going to do better than “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  I’m gonna give it a shot anyway, just because that’s how I do.  And also I noticed an intriguing correlation the other day, which I will share herein.

I bought a new bed on Friday, and this is only remarkable to me, but for several reasons.  To begin with, it was time, and we’ll leave it at that.  Beyond that, I’ve never owned a brand-new bed, at least not since it was my responsibility to provide it.  They’ve all been hand-me-downs to some degree, and nothing to write home about (but a column, clearly.)  My new bed?  It deserves a few words, because it is... bizarre.  

I suppose you don’t really get a good look at the mattresses on the showroom floor; as it turns out, they’re just a tad bigger when you get them home.  School lesson for the day: a “tad” is a technical term, used in engineering and creative writing, whose exact value is 10 times.  So picture in your minds eye a monstrosity of a bed that fills up half of my tiny little bachelor bedroom.  And I don’t mean half of the square footage, I’m talking the whole three-dimensional space, cubic feet.

I should also mention that I’ve never owned an actual bed, with a headboard and a footboard, a truly adult piece of furniture.  So the bed and the mattress form a mass about the size of a double wide trailer.  This bed is pushed up against one wall, leaving about two feet on the other wall, just enough to fit my tiny night table and the set of dog stairs that I’m gonna have to put there.  They’ll be for me, not my nonexistent dog, because the bed is also 4 feet tall.  I climb into this bed, quite literally.  And this is the apex of the bell curve -- the 5 or 10 years when someone can have a bed the size of a Datsun.  You certainly can’t have one when you’re young; that’s the kind of parenting that’ll get you in the papers.  And giving an Old person a bed of this magnitude would be cruel.  And hilarious.

There’s much to be said,

From the size of one’s bed.

Whether tiny or skinny or plush.

The short and squat,

Perfect for the tot,

And also for old and flush.

The monstrous berth,

Right for large girth,

But not the feint of heart.

Only young and spry, 

With a gleam in the eye,

Should fork out six hundred bucks for a bed that’s too tall to fall into when they’re exhausted after work or have had too many adult beverages.  That’s just not good business.

So it’s not exactly Ezra Pound, but the spirit of the poet is in the air, hovering over my gigantic bed.  

And I know what you’re all thinking; yes, I do have a very strange apartment.

strangeapartment... out.