My Air Mattress & My Middle Finger

It is an “Eddie Bauer” air bed that you can get at any Target. Not to be confused with the “Jack Bauer” model which has been discontinued, because every year they made them, they got worse and worse. I have had mine for years, and it has weathered many a Father’s & Sons outings, Scout camps, YM Encampments, High Adventures, Youth Conferences, etc. But, as things do, it is nearing the end of its time here on earth. It has developed a slow leak.

Not a large leak, mind you- a slow leak. Not big enough to justify buying a new one, but large enough to find my hip grinding into the ground in the middle of the night.  When that happens, I re-inflate it with this little contraption:

It carries 4D batteries on board. All you have to do to inflate it is take off this little cap, and then twist this round knob, and voila – it inflates. And then I go back to sleep.  (Granted, it does sound like a siren is going off whenever I turn the knob, so I lay there for a while trying to convince myself that it is OK for me to be comfortable. It is OK, isn’t it?)

Last night, it had gradually deflated, and at 3:35am I woke up feeling like I was recovering from hip-replacement surgery. I reached down to the controls to ease my suffering. I removed the cap, and turned the knob. It was kind of stuck, so I gave it a good hard turn…and pop! I dislocated my middle finger. Yes, “Tall Man” was now bending at an unnatural angle. It hurt like the dickens. I suppressed a shout, because it would have contained a vulgarity, and I don’t participate in such coarse language. I also suppressed the urge to cry like a little girl, because that would have necessitated a search for Kleenex, and it was far too cold for that.

However, having seen “Lethal Weapon” back in my wild ’80s days*, I remembered that Mel Gibson would occasionally have to put his shoulder back in the socket by forcefully slamming it against a wall. So I knew I had to take matters into my own hands hand. (*this is not a recommendation of the Mel Gibson film, or his method of treating dislocated joints.) You see, I’ve always felt, I can relate to Mel Gibson, except for the alcohol issues, racist rants, millions of dollars, and receding hairline.

So I grabbed my finger, took a deep breath, and gave it a tug. It popped it back into place. Mel would have been proud. Yes, it hurt. A lot. But, I was proud of myself that  did not wake my lovely EC who was sleeping next to me, in a cot, with earplugs. (My fault – mountains make me snore) Besides, it was a quiet night, with other campers nearby. I’m nothing if not courteous.

The end result is my air mattress is getting the old heave-ho, and I’m not going for the easy joke about giving it the middle-finger. However, I do apologize in advance for any typos you might find in my post. It turns out that my middle-finger actually does more that his fair share of important letters, such as “I”, “K”, and commas. Luckily, I am expert at typing incorrectly, so it will all work out eventually.