When Rani came home she was surprised, and berated me for the asymmetry of our bedroom. The thought of two matching twin beds did cross my feeble brain, but was discarded as quickly as it came. Given her tendency to turn, toss, twist and tent, Rani could never sleep on a twin bed. Also, there wasn’t enough space to keep two queens or even two full beds in the master bedroom. It would be too cramped, and with hardly any space to walk around we would constantly run into the beds and stub our toes. I felt that our sleep was more important than aesthetics. After all, we were not shooting for a splash in the Architectural Digest.
Notwithstanding my trips to the bathroom, I slept well on my new twin bed. For the next few weeks, the sound sleep made me happier and chirpier. I resumed to sing my favorite Kishore Kumar songs in the shower.
But, my hope that Rani would wake up in the morning after a refreshingly sound sleep was not realized. She complained that whenever I got out of bed, my bed squeaked and noise woke her up. There was not much that could be done to fix the squeaking. The only solution was for me to sleep on the floor in the master bedroom or move my bed to another room. Since sleeping on the floor wasn’t feasible with my stiff, arthritic limbs, I moved my bed to the den and slept soundly. But, the next day, Rani implored me to get back to the master bedroom. She felt lonely without yours truly.
So, I was back in the master bedroom with my squeaky twin bed. Just when it seemed as if the sleep deprivation might continue into the foreseeable future, fans came to the rescue. On a particularly hot day, in spite of the overworked air-conditioner, it became unbearably hot. So, I kept a couple of pedestal fans in front of our beds. In addition to keeping the room cool, the continuous whirring noise was loud enough to drown out my bed’s squeaky noise. With time we got used to the fans and Rani slept soundly and I was relieved. During winter time we used an extra blanket and kept the fans running.