The Biggest Dad Hack Ever

Dad has been in the hospital this week with pneumonia. It’s been a long week with COVID scares, high temperature concerns and worries about recovering at home.

With my parents’ bedroom on the third floor, Dad’s office with his computer on the second, and the family TV and food on the first, Dad resting in the third floor bedroom was a terrible plan. I knew there was an old heavy bed frame in my old bedroom on the second floor among my Dad’s papers and books, as it has been converted into…well, I don’t know what that room is now to be honest.

After a visit to Dad earlier in the week, I went over to the house to set-up the temporary bedroom which included putting the bed itself together. It was a stressful day as Dad had been told that we had to wait on the results of a second COVID test to be negative “just in case”.

Talk about being in limbo hell.

There was a small couch in front of the bed’s headboard and footboard which leaned against the wall along with framed pieces are fiber art. I had to maneuver it out and around my old light table (note to self – do something with that light table).

I breathed deep through this activity, knowing that while I love to assemble things and am good at it, I could also at any moment blow a frustrated gasket. Balancing a giant wood headboard in order to get the side frame in is no small feat. I managed to do it as I knew I could with enough grunting and books for leveling, and then realized I did not have the cross slats to hold the bed itself in the frame.

I took a vague look around in the neighboring rooms for them. No luck. I thought that maybe the boxspring would sit on the ledge inside the frame, so I lugged the boxspring from the closet, carefully brought it over to the frame and placed it in. At which point it made no contact with the frame at all and fell straight to the floor.

Hurumph.

I took and breath and thought well, I guess I have to go cut some wood or something? I went to the basement and found nothing that might work. I found wood in random shapes and scraps of odd lengths. I returned to the second floor and did a more thorough search for the actual slats.

Lo and behold, the cross slats were behind the door of the room across the hall from where I had set up the bed.

I may have cheered.

I lugged the box-spring out of the way, placed the slats, returned the boxspring. I made the bed, realized it was hard as a rock and added go to Target and buy mattress topper to my list of the days to-dos (there weren’t many, don’t be impressed).

Next was the nightstand. Anyone who’s been in my childhood home would think finding a little end-table would be easy as pie. It was shockily hard to find a table that would suffice. I did eventually and then I brought down his various night-standy things. I plugged in and picked up the digital clock, now blinking 12:00.

I’m that person who can figure out how to set the car clock in anyone’s car, (boy, this post is braggy, huh?) but I could not get this clock to set the time. I tried and tried, thinking in my mind as I stood there sweating from the previous activity This is what’s gonna make me blow a gasket. This damm clock!

I found the manual online and even following the instructions it didn’t work. I breathed deep and tried not to think about Dad getting flustered later when he came home and couldn’t get it to set either. I set it down and accepted defeat.

Later that day I went back to the hospital to visit Dad. I told him about the day and the bed building and whatnot. I told him I could not for the life of me get the digital clock to set!

“Oh yeah that’s broken” he told me very causally.

“Well then why was it accurate when I unplugged it in your room? How do you set the time?”

“I just wait until midnight to plug it in, and then I push accept at the top.”

{Adds “digital clock” to list of possible Christmas gifts for Dad}