THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, October 14, 2010 Formerly & Everywhere! RFD# to the gulf stream waters 3 to the New York Island by Lorrie Baird ALONG FOR THE RIDE by Lorrie Baird My husband retired 3.5


years ago. Since then we’ve moved 8 times. It went like this: we moved from our house to a rented condo; from the condo to our first RV; from that RV to our fulltime coach; and now we’re moving (but we’ll be back next spring) from our fulltime coach to our winter house in Florida. Meanwhile, we traveled thousands of miles, visited at least 23 states, lived in countless campgrounds and RV resorts and estab- lished residency in three different states. Some people retire and


relax. That would not be us. Right now I’m look- ing at a tiny U-Haul trail- er packed with half our earthly belongings includ- ing one king-size Sleep Number memory foam bed compressed down to a size smaller than a crib mattress. This feat alone is comparable to sucking all the hot air out of Washing- ton politicians and pack- ing them into a college dorm room; or stuffing a full bedroom suite into a phone booth. All I know is that when we unload this trailer it’s going to make 20 clowns emerging from a Volkswagen bug look like amateur night at the circus. Naturally, none of this


went according to plan. That, also, would not be us.


See? When we first ar-


rived in May Jim informed me that we had “plenty” of room to play with in the trailer we were renting to take to Florida in the fall. So when I bought some artwork and new shower curtains, no problem. He didn’t flinch when I bought an entire king bedding ensemble including six decorative pillows. (It was


on sale.) He did wince a little when I came home with a decorative floor vase complete with five-foot tall dried grasses. By the time the summer wound down we got to the point where Jim inspected every bag I came home with for con- traband Florida stuff. This, as you can imagine, didn’t go over big with me, espe- cially when Jim had our new king Sleep Number bed delivered to the camp- ground and the boxes took up our entire deck area… and we have a big deck. I had a meltdown, but I’ve already written about that in a previous column. The bed found temporary


storage at our friends Brad and Kathie’s large Victo- rian house basement until the day Brad was walk- ing past it and POW! The memory foam mattress topper suddenly liberated itself from the plastic bag that it was tightly bound in and bloomed like a mush- room over our entire stash in the basement. Brad carefully repositioned it, taking great care not to let it touch the basement floor. One week later, Jim and


our rented trailer arrived at Brad’s for pick-up. Now this memory foam mattress is no small…or light…item. Still, instead of asking for help, Jim loaded it into the trailer himself. When Jim unlocked the


trailer door I was sitting at the table eating lunch. “Please tell me what I’m looking at stuffed into the back of that trailer without any protection is NOT our new mattress.” “Yup,” said Jim, munch-


ing his sandwich. “I had nothing to put around it so I stuffed the mattress in at the end.” Out the door I flew faster


than Superman off a sling shot. What I saw defied description. The mattress looked like it had been drop-kicked through a


sooty fireplace. Jim unwit- tingly did a drop and drag on his way to the trailer. And we all know how clean rental trailers are. I pitched a hissy. One


that made the meltdown at the bed’s arrival look like a dress rehearsal for Armageddon. This was the ONE item in the entire move that I informed my husband I was paranoid about keeping clean. Not only that, but the bed was under a 30-day love it or return it policy which my husband had just ren- dered null and void be- cause mattresses that sur- vived the Haiti earthquake probably looked better than this one now did. Let me put it this way: I had better really love sleeping on this mattress (once I get it cleaned up) or some- body will be sleeping in the guest room…and guess who that would be? Only kidding. (Maybe.)


Let me put it this way: I’ve been upset many times during our almost 45-year marriage. If I did not stran- gle Jim over this incident, I probably never will. So here we are, almost


all packed up and it looks like we may even have a


square inch to spare, but probably not. It’s been a bittersweet week of hugs, laughter over summer memories and a few tears saying goodbye for the winter to our northern family as we prepare to say hello to our southern family. In a few days we will


point the retirement-mo- bile south and set up win- ter residency in our brand


GOLDEN VIEW


new (to us) home in a brand new community. As we start the next chapter of our lives as homeown- ers once again, stay tuned. The next stop is Florida, with a quick layover in North Carolina to shop for furniture. Meanwhile, thanks for coming along for the ride.


jim-lorrie@earthlink.net


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