laid on each bed with her arms stretched and eyes closed, as if to demonstrate the somniferous effect of each bed. The display of her somewhat bodacious body irritated the already restless Rani. She nudged me to get out of that place. I made a feeble excuse and walked to our car. Rani was very upset, and accused me of ogling that woman instead of paying proper attention to the beds. I said very convincingly that when my dear wife—the ravishing Rani, who didn’t need any makeup nor lipstick to enhance her sultry and dusky looks was by my side, why would I even glance at another woman. My passionate words had the desired effect, and Rani’s raging fires were doused. Also, I was relieved that we saved a lot of money by not falling for the tic lady’s sales pitch.
For the next couple of weeks we went to more moderately-priced stores and found a king sleigh bed. Although the bed was delivered in a few days and was set up in the master bedroom, Rani insisted that we sleep on our old queen bed in the spare bedroom, until an auspicious day was fixed to start sleeping on the king bed. She pored over her Hindu calendar and consulted her older sister in Dallas about proper planetary positions, and fixed a date for the inauguration ceremony. It appeared as though the gods above were not favorably disposed, and we discovered a problem on the very first night. When one of us turned to the side, the bed shook and woke the other person. At times it felt as if we were in the midst of a mild earthquake.
Upon listening to my complaint, the manager sent his crew to look at the bed, and they found a few loose screws and tightened them. If we hoped that the wobbly bed would now be stable, we were wrong. The bed was still prone to mood swings, just like a post-menopausal woman. We gave it a try for a few more days and when it was evident that it wouldn’t work, I again called the manager to request him to take the blasted bed back. He gave me a long lecture about the New York state law, how he was not allowed to take a mattress back once it left the store. When I told him that my marriage was at stake, he was sympathetic, and sent his men to pick up the bed and refunded most of the money. But we got stuck with the king-size mattress and box springs. I went to a mattress place and purchased a simple metal frame and set the box springs and mattress on it. Now it was quite stable, and we were able to sleep peacefully. But every now and then Rani complained about the stark bed without a headboard. I convinced her that a headboard might make the bed unstable.
When Rani found a better job in North Carolina, we decided to leave Upstate New York. The move went well, and we settled into a modest house, ensconced in a quiet community in Wilmington, NC. We were far from the snow and cold (which we didn’t miss), and just a stone’s throw away from the Atlantic ocean (which we loved).
When all the furniture was in its place, when all the boxes were emptied and the stuff put away, I began to relax and looked forward to peace and quiet. Husband proposes, but wife disposes. Tired of our king mattress on a metal frame, Rani wanted a solid king bed with a proper headboard. So, off we went bed-hunting. For such a small town it was surprising that there were so many furniture stores. The mandate was to avoid furniture stores selling cheap stuff, where the lack of quality was papered over by the endorsements of tall and slim supermodels or big-bosomed stars of trashy TV shows.