Oompa Loompa Beds

The house I grew up in is still my parents' house. It's the one I go visit and the one I sleep in the night before Christmas, an odd weekend here and there, and when my sister, her husband and baby Sonia are visiting. I only live 40 minutes from them, so it's rare I sleep there rather than just drive home, but it happens probably 10 times a year, at least.

Since we all moved out, my Mom now proudly has two guest rooms and an office. One guest room has a queen sized bed and the other has two twins. This is a pretty smart configuration. She can host people who want to sleep together (such as my sister and brother-in-law) or people who want to sleep separately (such as my aunt and a cousin from Buffalo). It is also a configuration that mostly just screws me out of a good night sleep.

When I sleep at their house and my sister is not in town, I can happily climb into the queen bed and have a relatively good night sleep even though the bed is not my own. Whenever I sleep at their house and my sister is also in town, I get a bed in the twin room. My sister and my brother-in-law are particular about sleeping in a bed someone else has slept in, so each time I sleep in the queen, my mother or I have to change it completely. One time, I was sleeping there and my sister was due home in a few weeks and my mother actually suggested I sleep in a twin bed instead to save having to change the bed. Insane.

Let's be clear about twin beds. They suck. And the ones in my mother's guest room suck in particular. They were in my sister's room while she was growing up. We've tried to get her to replace them. They are super-mini twins or something weird. I do not fit in them if I am completely stretched out. They are also super narrow or something weird too, because I can hardly turn over in the bed without falling out.

Know something about me here: I slept in a twin bed until I was 30. I was poor and cheap and single all through my twenties, so I took my childhood twin bed with me to Maryland and then LA. I borrowed a twin when I moved to Colorado in 2002 for the ski season. I only bought a queen when I re-entered real life in 2003. So I'm no stranger to twin beds. And I am not any bigger than I was then, so I'm not sure what is wrong with these twins.

I sleep terribly every time I sleep at my mother's and am regulated to one of these beds. I was complaining about it to a friend and he said, "Oh, yeah, Oompa Loompa beds suck." Ha! He and his brothers have been calling twin beds after those little creepy slave-men in Charlie & The Chocolate Factory for years. How great! I would like to invite an Oompa Loompa over to my parents' house, put him in one of those twin beds, and show my mother once and for all that it is just not reasonable to ask me to sleep in one.

Last week, my dad's cousin John slept in one of the beds after a night of imbibing. The poor man, even though he's in his mid-60s, was not allowed to sleep in the queen bed, because my sister was arriving the next day and my mom, having returned to school/work did not have time to change that bed before she got home. He left the bed unmade when he made his escape the next morning, after probably sleeping a grand total of 22 minutes all night (or perhaps the key to a good night sleep in one of those bed is alcohol). I arrived Friday and just climbed right in behind him. "But John slept in that bed!" my sister cried. "So?" I asked. "For one night. What could he have possibly done that would require me to change the sheets?" She just looked at me doubtfully. When I got into bed and placed my always-with-me glass of water on the bedside table, I noticed something weird on the small little book set there by my mother for guests. Ah! John's gum! Hilarious!

Apparently, John is planning on sleeping over again next Saturday after a big wedding we are all attending together. I can share the room with him, both of us uncomfortable in our Oompa Loompa beds and wondering about the fact that we're sharing a room. Or, I could make my way 3 miles to my brother and sister-in-law's house and sleep in their spare room, which civilly, has a queen bed.

Knowing John, who in many ways, I am built after, he'll just crawl into the same unmade bed, because damn, "She only slept there one night, right? What could she have possibly done that would require anyone to change the sheets?"

And if an Oompa Loompa happens to stop by, he can have the other bed, because I'll be at my brother's.