The princess and the pea, and city serendipity

The other day, I decided it would be a good idea to buy a new futon mattress, since our current mattress is approximately 75% dust mites and as flat (and as comfortable) as a pancake. The mother of my child deserves to sleep comfortably while she's gestating, I thought.

So I hiked up to the World of Futons (not to be confused with the House of Futons! -- there may be many Futon Mansions in there, but the World of Futons is, you know, the whole world).

The process of picking out a mattress was very awkward: the proprietress (I believe her official title is "Queen of the World of Futons") watched impatiently while I prodded and sat on various beds, smiling apologetically ... at one point, I wanted to lie down on one of them to try it out, but with the Queen watching me and all, I just sort of reclined onto one arm for a moment, then stood up again. "That one's very good," said the Queen dismissively.

The next problem was getting the mattress home. My brilliant plan was to stuff the mattress -- which comes conveniently folded-up and wrapped in plastic -- into a cab. After about ten minutes, a cab finally stopped for me -- on the other side of the street. The cabbie stared through his side window at me like he was sizing me up as the next victim in his serial-killing spree. I waited for a break in the traffic and sprinted across the street -- not an easy feat when carrying a slippery, mushy, fifty-pound package. I tried to open the rear door of the cab, but it was locked. I leaned into the front passenger-side window, and informed the cabbie of this: "It's locked," I pointed out.

Rather than pop the electronic lock, he yelled, "It won't fit."

I stared at the cabbie. I looked at his roomy back seat. I looked at the folded-up futon. Clearly, it would fit just fine.

"Yes, it will," I said.

"Is too big," he retorted.

"Buddy;" I said, "it'll fit -- with plenty of room left over for me, too!"

"No! Is too big!" he said angrily, and then sped away.

It occurred to me later that if he had put as much time into driving me to my building as he had into arguing with me, he would already have dropped me off by this point.

Now I was in a quandary. It was a quarter after five on a weekday, and all of the cabs rolling down Broadway were either off-duty or taken. So I did the only thing I could: I grappled the plastic package and staggered off down the sidewalk.

For about a block, I thought, Hey, this isn't so bad -- I can do this! Only ten more blocks to go! By the middle of the next block, though, I realized that I was in trouble. It was a humid, ninety-degree day, and my sweaty hands and arms were slipping off the plastic. I stopped and reconsidered my position. A skateboard, I thought -- that's what I need! I could balance the package on the board and push it, and I'd be home in no time. My kingdom for a skateboard! I looked around me, in the wild hope that I might possibly be a couple of doors away from a store named "World of Skateboards". Alas, no such luck.

I considered trying to MacGuyver some sort of handles onto the plastic, since the awkwardness of it was a bigger issue than the weight. If I could just get ahold of some shopping bags and duct tape ... but soon I developed a more realistic Plan B: I balanced the package on top of a fire hydrant, squatted down, and balanced it on my shoulder, on its longest narrow edge. Standing up again was slightly challenging, but once I got the center of gravity right and leaned it slightly against the side of my head, I was able to get some forward momentum, and continue southwards.

By the time I reached City Hall Park, though, I was hurting. I was just three blocks from home, but the futon was now resting more on my head than on my shoulder. I was drenched with sweat and weaving somewhat. The tourists, understandably, were giving me a wide berth. After one more block, I could do no more for the moment. I had to put the package down and rest.

Hoisting it onto my shoulder again proved problematic. To an outside observer, my efforts to do so no doubt looked like some sort of busker comedy routine: "Look, honey, that mime is pretending to be in a wrestling match! That's hilarious! What is that he's wrestling? It looks like some kind of bedding! How creative -- take a picture!"

At this moment, deus descended in his machina, in the form of a street vendor pushing a hand truck. "Would you like to borrow this?" he said. I stared at him in disbelief for about five seconds.

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I would."

The last two blocks of my journey were joyfully uneventful. Soon the futon was deposited inside our apartment, and minutes later, I returned the hand truck to the vendor's curbside souvenir-hawking table. I tried to press a five-dollar bill into his hand, but he smiled and said, "No -- I wanted to help you, and if you pay me, then I wasn't really helping you, was I? Thanks is enough." I thanked him profusely, and promised to remember his kindness. So thank you, Abdoul, West African immigrant, licensed street vendor, and kind-hearted human being. Greta now sleeps soundly as I write this on a (for now) firm and dust-mite-free bed.