when you don't feel like writing about Milton's paradise lost.

sleep number beds.
you would think that they provide a world of comfort and magic. you would normally get excited when you see that your bed, that thing you get to spend your favorite hours of the day in, has a remote control accompaniment. but these beds have proven to be nothing more than a painful experience both to our bodies and to our pride.

evening 1.
lovely experience, really. sarah sits down on one edge, ange catapults off the other. sarah gets up off of her side, ange sinks into hers til she hits the box frame. their bed was just too too soft (picture now the scene from Goldilocks and the 3 bears...i know someone reading this thought of that. ok maybe it was just me.) my bed, on the other hand, was a piece of plywood...a rock...a slab of concrete...anything but that magical bed they display on the commericals...laying there, my hip bone uncomfortably jutting into the pavement-like surface...well, after spending many many minutes trying to adjust the relative hardness of our beds, we humbled ourselves and called our last hope: the front desk. Freshman always wins, so ange got the honor of making the call..."excuse me, but we just checked into our rooms tonight and we're having a little trouble with our beds...is it the higher the number, the harder the bed? or the lower the number?"...he didn't even know...what we got was a "one moment please." answer received, we figured we would sleep more comfortably afterall. higher number = harder bed. great. wonderful. thank you. ...hang up and play with the remotes, no such luck. looks like we're sleeping as is tonight.

next morning.
Dear Housekeeping,
please, if you can, adjust the firmness of our beds. we would greatly appreciate it as we are having trouble figuring out exactly how to work them. they are a bit too high-tech for us. any mid-range softness would do. thank you very much for your help.

afternoon.
well thanks to our ingenious, if not pathetic, note, our beds are somewhat better. mine is a little softer...well, kind of, and ange and sarah are no complaining that their is too hard. we can't win. ange takes a nap on her hard bed. i lay on mine to do homework. we have agreed to not touch the remotes anymore. my back is kiling me so i go back on my word and grab my remote...and attempt to make the numbers on the screen as low as possible. nothing. ange wakes up from her nap and starts to complain that her back is sinking in too much, their bed has reverted back to its old ways. hers is now, once again, too soft. WHAT THE HECK. these beds man, they have a mind of their own.

well, moral of the story...if your remote doesnt do anything to your bed, please remain calm and switch remotes with the other bed's inhabitants. i know, crazy idea. but wireless remotes may just get switched every once in awhile. so rather than getting frustrated at your hard bed and putting the numbers lower and lower while watching your room mates get frustrated with their soft beds, putting their numbers higher and higher yet yielding opposite-than-expected results, just stop, think, and work it out logically. it would save alot of trouble, a lot of backs, and a lot of pride.

life does seem a little brighter now, now that our problem is solved.

as a side note: coach doesn't like these beds either. he's been complaining how "the king size bed has 2 different numbers...one for either side. why would they do that?" poor coach...the KING SIZE bed. i can only imagine what he's suffering through...i mean, i can see how two numbers could get extremely annoying...think of the problems that could cause--he explained to me today that his back, which hurt all over yesterday, now only hurts on the one side of his body. and you know what? he blamed the king-size have-it-the-way-you-like bed. clearly, his right back hurts because that side of the bed was harder than the left.

well, hope you enjoyed this one example of our already high-number of blonde moments on this trip. looks like i'm the only one here with an excuse.