My bed has been killing me lately. Not physically, I mean I don’t have backaches or anything, but it pops, it sags, and the frame has fallen apart no less than three times. I made B! drill it together with wood screws at 3am last April, and it seems lately that the wood screws are about to give way. It was the bed I shared with my husband and the bed that our friends (now married with child) shared before that. It just drives me totally insane. And this Saturday, I decided it was high time to do something about it.

B! and I marched our way down to the neighborhood Sleepy’s, blazed through the double doors, and were assaulted by a sea of headboards and mattresses. Greeted by a heavily-makeupped woman of indeterminate middle age, I made no compunction about our need for a cheap bed. “On the lower end of the price range,” was how I delicately phrased our requirement.

Mind you, we are in no shape to be purchasing anything on any end of the price range. My computer’s hard drive died on Thursday, and the repair is a cool three hundred dollars. Jake’s medical bills? Please, let’s not even think. My OWN medical bills? I have a payment plan with my providers. But the bed was wrecking my life, and at thirty-two years old, I mean, why should I have to live like that?

Zero percent financing. No money down. Delivery, assembly, AND disposal. A thousand-dollar mattress slashed to nearly half its original price, with a nice brand name and a five-year guarantee. I signed on the line three times and, just like that, became the owner of my very first self-purchased brand new bed.

Anyone remember the Mr. Rogers “Proud of You” song? It’s kind of been in my head all weekend. Like, I’m singing it to myself.