Why are there dust ruffles?
Few things get me to deep thinking, like why do I exist? But mentioning dust ruffle and that gets me there, or more apt, why is there a dust ruffle? My wife Marsha mentions it and once she does I know what’s coming. To me it represents the moments in a relationship when the unlovable, I mean unmovable object meets the unstoppable force. My wife represents the unstoppable force, especially when her mind turns to the damned DR.
“Why are we changing out the dust ruffle?” I ask. “Because it’s dusty,” she says. I try to reason, “that’s what dust ruffles do, they get dusty. Won’t the next just get dusty, too? What’s the point?
And why does it have to be now (almost always when the big game is on)?”
The unmovable object, or damn near, is the mattress. It’s a nice mattress and incredibly heavy. It won’t move. Each corner of it just flops or sags, making it unwieldy. As one end is lifted the other end presses down and makes the dust ruffle — well it makes it so you can’t pull it out.
Our youngest son is a former body builder and even he can’t get the job done. Ideally it’d take at least three people but during Covid days I call on what I’ve got. Me. And I not only have two knees shot from years of long distance running but a right shoulder that my surgeon, actually every surgeon has taken one look at and decided I’d be better off with something there that isn’t even human. But it’ll will work better and won’t hurt. I still don’t want it.
So Marsha and I go round and round. I’m firm. I am not going to change out the stupid dust ruffle. We have a dark floor in a dark room, you can’t even tell it’s dirty. “Of course, it’s dirty,” my wife says. “I don’t need to see that it’s dirty to know that that it is.”
I took two semesters of logic in college at Illinois and it’s done me wonders over the decades but it’s not much good against that line.
We live in Arizona and scorpions can find their way just about anyplace, including our bed. Marsha and I have been stung more than a few times. The dust ruffle, I contend, just makes it easier for them. If the dust ruffle wasn’t there, then there’d be no way for them to get into our bed now would there? I told you I took logic in school. A dust ruffle can serve as a stairway to a stinging good time for a scorpion.
I once got it in the hip as I stood next to the foot side of the bed. It wasn’t an instant screaming-cuss pain, but more like a slow burn. It conked me out for about four hours. When I awoke this terrible back pain I’d had was gone. I don’t recommend the treatment but I actually felt pretty good.
This one scorpion happened to pick our bed to party on New Year’s. Banished to the couch after a fight — you don’t have to know why — I heard a scream from the bed room. Marsha had been stung in the neck. I so wanted to gloat, but I could see it hurt too much, besides she’d thought I had stabbed her. I disposed of the assassin and held Marsha until the pain passed and she could sleep. When she woke up, she was still mad. I can’t remember what it was about and as I said you don’t need to know, but I don’t think it was about the dust ruffle.
This time.
As for the scorpions, we’ve sort of taken care of that problem by creating another one. We can’t keep track of the remote. We look all over, tromping off to every room and tearing up the bed so if there’s any scorpions laying in wait, we’ve sent them flying. I’m not sure how scorpions communicate but the word must be out for it’s been years since the last sting. Sometimes we find the remote right off the bat, then we look at each other and tear up the sheets anyway, checking for any hidden terrors.
Mother Nature has us trained.
