Air Mattress

They call it an air bed. Air bed, as if that changes the fact that it's nothing but an ordinary air mattress with a little automatic electronic pump attached to it. I've had to sleep on this air mattress for the past two weeks now. And I'll continue to have to sleep on this air mattress for another month, while my sister and her fiancee are in town.

I can't believe that my mother would kick me out of my own room. I'm a light sleeper, and a finicky one, and it wasn't until I got my new bed that I could sleep through the night. And now, sleeping on this air mattress, I find myself waking up practically every hour, all night long, unable to keep my eyes closed. But it's not even the air mattress that bothers me most. It's not being able to go into my own room.

I grew up in that room, and all of my most important possessions are there. My baseball cards are there, my guitar is there, all my clothes are there. Everything is in that room but me, and where am I? Stuck in the family room on this leaky old air mattress which deflates halfway through the night.

There's just no justice. They should be the ones who have to spend the night tossing and turning on the air mattress. They should be the ones to be forced to stay in the living room where they have no privacy whatsoever,. They should be the ones who are inconvenienced for a month and a half. It's not like I'm visiting their house. They're visiting mine. And even if I did visit their house, do you think that they would give up their own room to be good hosts so that I would not have to sleep on the floor? Do you think that they would be the ones who would have to take the air mattress? Not a chance!

The only bright side to all of this is that my mom is starting to let me sleep over at my best friend, Jimmy's house more often. She says that it is because I am such a good boy, but I know the real reason. She just wants me out of her hair, so that she can take better care of my sister and entertain guests. But I don't even care. At Jimmy's house, I don't ever have to sleep on the floor. They have a real spare bed.