Welcome to Sunday Stealing, Back to Bed.
“Last week, we shared questions about your bathroom. This week, with questions stolen from Manic Monday, we’re moving to the bedroom.”
1. Let’s say your alarm wakes you up with music. What would be the worst song to hear first thing in the morning?
It doesn’t matter. Any song with words is irritating to wake up to, even songs I like.
2. How many pillows do you sleep with?
Two. One doesn’t cut it at all.
3. What size mattress do you sleep on?
I share a queen with my wife.
4. Do you always sleep on the same side of the bed?
Yes, to my wife’s left, near my dresser.
5. Do you make your bed every day?
No. My wife often does. Back in the 1980s, I visited my sister in California. After I didn’t make the bed for a couple of days, she made it and said, “Won’t that feel better?” NO! Being in a well-made bed is like being in a sarcophagus. I’ll kick out a hospital corner in minutes.
6. Do you keep water on your bedside table?
No, I’d almost certainly knock it over.
7. How often do you change your sheets?
Once a week.
8. What’s under your bed?
A couple of bins of clothes, I think.
9. Do you sleep in total darkness or like to have a light on?
It’s mostly darkness. There’s a night light on the baseboard in the hallway, so I can see if I wake up in the middle of the night, which happens about two-thirds of the time.
My childhood room
10. What do you remember about your childhood bedroom?
Growing up, we lived on the first floor of a small two-story house owned by my maternal grandmother. I probably slept in the same room as my sister Leslie until my sister Marcia arrived.
There was no other room as such. In the middle room, my father built a wall that ran from the kitchen entrance about 2/3 of the way into the room, then another wall at a 90-degree angle from the first, leaving about an entrance to my room the size of a standard door, though I did not HAVE a door. Then he built a solid piece of wood – one large shelf – held up by the two new walls and the existing wall to serve as the frame for my “bed”. On top of that was a foam mattress.
I did have room for my stuff under the bed, including a very low dresser. Around the corner was my bookcase, filled with my Golden Book Encyclopedias, World Almanac, and other books.
One of those books described the solar system and gave the relative sizes of the sun and the planets. So my father painted the solar system on the ceiling in my room—a giant sun and the various planets, including their known moons at the time. I remember that according to the book, Jupiter had 12, Saturn 9, Neptune 5, Uranus and Mars 2 apiece, and Earth and Pluto 1 each.
Since the walls my father built didn’t reach the ceiling, a single ceiling light illuminated the middle room/my room. Anyone coming to visit us who went into the kitchen or bathroom was likely to see at least this massive star on the ceiling.
The Bed from the Broadway musical HAIR