Our House is a Very, Very, Very

I may have mentioned that F and I live in an charming cape cod on the Potomac River in MD. I may not have mentioned that it was built by a weekend carpenter.

No big deal, really -except that we have quirks here and there - oh, we have quirks. (And apparently mice at one time as ANY time we move/life a major appliance, there are mice droppings galore). Yuck. And none of the appliances work or have worked at some point - washing machine, refrigerator, toilet, etc.

But one oddity of this place is the lack of space in the stairwell - not sure if that shit is to code -that make it impossible to move any furniture upstairs.

Granted, with the price of gas and, by extension, the cost of air travel being what it is - probably no one is coming to visit our asses anyway.

But, just in case, F and I wanted a bed upstairs - there's a loft outside the Master.

Problem is, you cannot fit a queen sized box mattress up the stairs, and all we had was 2 queen mattresses and 2 queen box springs.

F was able, with the help of movers, to get 1 mattress upstairs. The remaining mattress (ala 1978 gift from sister and BIL after my divorce when I got my first place and had nothing) finally had to go to the Salvation Army as well as the two box springs. We looked into a storage facility, but found that, for some reason, your typical self-store outfit around here (sticks, boonies) charges roughly the same rent for a 8x8 as a 2 bedroom walk up in dc within spitting distance of the metro and a fabulous view of the Rock Creek Park. At first we were outraged, livid, frustrated, furious, considered writing letters to our representatives - but then we decided to just skip it and get rid of 'em.

So I've got this mattress and this frame - but no box spring. And living by the maxim that has been my life whilst posted far from my family - "If you don't build it, they will come. If you do, they won't". I conceived of the idea of building a box spring ourselves. (Or F's self - I've been on antibiotic that makes me want to hurl for the past 2 days, so I've done a lot of nothing).

F gathered the lumber, a drill (we are now the proud owners of a jig saw) and began construction yesterday at noon-ish. He slept for about 6 hours and has been back on the project for roughly 12 hours now.

Just now he came in, sweaty, stared at me fiercely and said, "OK, so there is NOTHING in the house with protein in it, right?" An utterly base and offensive come back popped into my head, but I looked at sweat-drenched F holding a power tool and just left it at "no". WTF? Why am I the purveyor of all protein for the house. I don't even *like* protein -not to mention I don't ever want to ingest another piece of food with protein in it again.

Anyway, I have a 300 lb box spring and a hungry, angry man on my hands.