Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Sofa Sleeper Incident

I am a girl who needs her sleep.
I used to lose a lot of it when my kids were out of school for summer vacation.
One night, several years ago, I decided it was time for bed.
I turned on the big screen, pulled out the leather sofa sleeper in the family room, and told 8 year old Brynly and 10 year old Braeden they could watch TV if they were quiet.
I also told them their 13 year old brother, Taylor, was sleeping at a friends house so I had already locked up.
After tossing and turning in my hot bedroom for an hour and a half I finally fell asleep.
About an hour later I woke up to someone screaming.
And this was no ordinary scream.
This was a "someone is chopping my head off" kind of scream.
It took me a minute to wake up enough to figure out the sound was coming from the family room.
When I got downstairs and yelled, "What the hell is going on?" all I could see was Braeden running around the room.
"Where is your sister?" I screeched.
He pointed to the closed up sofa sleeper.
My 8 year old daughter was folded inside the sofa sleeper which was now pushed down inside the couch.
I  stood there for a good 60 seconds trying to figure out if anyone had ever told me what to do in this situation.
No one had.
I had visions of cutting the couch to pieces with a knife.
It was less than a year old and it wasn't cheap.
I told Braeden to quit freaking out and help me pull the sleeper back out.
He had already tried and another person pulling did not make much difference.
It wouldn't budge.
We put our legs up on the edge of the couch for leverage and pulled.
It still wouldn't budge.
My daughter's screams were starting to become hysterical.
I was trying to figure out if I could handle the embarrassment of calling 911 when I reached my hand down inside the couch to comfort her.
Her little head was covered in sweat.
I asked her if she could breathe and she said she could but it was tight.
I knew this had to be resolved soon or I was going to have to call the authorities.
Taylor was bigger and taller and I thought he might be able to do it.
I told Brynly I was going down to the neighbors' house to get her brother.
She started to scream again and said she was going to die while I was gone.
I told her she would be okay but I had to get some help quick. 
When I got to the neighbors house, even though it was close to midnight, the man of the house, Blake, was outside working on a car. I asked him where Taylor was and he said the boys weren't there. They were out screwing around somewhere.
I made a mental note to ground Taylor later.
Blake asked me if I needed some help and I said yes and started running back to my house.
Unfortunately, he had a sprained ankle and couldn't keep up with me but his wife, Lori, overheard the conversation from their front door and was right behind me. 
I had not said what the emergency was so when we got into my family room, Lori just looked at me.
She could not figure out where the screaming was coming from either.
I pointed to the sofa sleeper.
She got a funny look on her face. Then we both started pulling.
After a couple of tries, up came the sofa sleeper and a very scared and sweaty girl.
I thanked Lori and she left. I can't imagine what she must have been thinking.
Brynly and Braeden cried and cried.
When they had calmed down a little I said, "What the?"
They said they were playing "taco" and they never thought the springs were strong enough to pull a 60 pound person into the sofa.
What is the moral to the story?
There is none.
This is just a humorous story that shows you that stuff happens.
Okay, maybe there is one. Never underestimate the power of a spring. 






3 comments:

  1. That is so scary! But I love the way you see the humor in the situation and tell the story. I am seriously laughing out loud.

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  2. One of our favorite Christensen stories!

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  3. You have a talent for writing! Love reading your blogs.

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