Bells and Whistles: Originally Published in Family Talk Magazine

An indoor pool  is the ultimate amenity, for my kids anyway. These days,  I prefer a complimentary [hot] breakfast that’s served until at least 11:00 a.m. and a micro-mini-fridge-combo.  Oh, and a late check out, please. Thank you. But, when I was a kid, the key to a perfect vacation was scoring a motel with a coin slot bolted to a formica topped wood grain nightstand. Oh the thrill! The only disappointment came in having to wait for my sister’s turn to end so that I could have my go, unless there were in fact two Magic Fingers double beds! An alien red heat lamp in the bathroom equalled serious bonus points. I’d turn the knob as far as it would go, twisting beyond the possible 60 minutes, and sit on the toilet seat absorbing the dry hot ticks, one by one….until someone else needed the bathroom and my trance was broken.

Our bed vibrates like it has Magic Finger technology, which it doesn’t because it’s 2015, we’re at home--not a motel, and  it’s just a standard Serta Perfect Sleeper. The pillow top foam is supposed to control temperature, but apparently that’s not functioning. We’re shaking because we’re both cold. My husband ducks beneath the covers.

 “What are you doing?!” I ask. He’s invaded my space. I’m fooling with my socks which are tucked into my leggings and there’s not room for both of us to be moving without someone getting kicked.

 “That light….” he mutters hiding his eyes. The lamp in the corner remains on. It’s closest to my side, but he was the last one in. 

“Well, come here and grab my leg or something then….” We erupt into gasping guffaws, shaking further, but at least warming, shivers replaced with hearty laughs.

I don’t have to say it, I realize, because he’s already gotten the joke, but I want to anyway--to prolong the moment--this shared hilarity.

 “Remember that time….” 

He says, “Yes,” before I have time to finish.

 “The time when I fell off the bed?” 

“Yes.”

The mattress jounces with fervent laughter...the type that induces movement but the severity prevents any sound other than wheezes of breath. After some minutes, my eyes and cheeks burning with tears, I’m able to sputter,“I don’t even know what I was doing.” 

We’re under the covers, but the chill has gone. The light remains on. “Okay, grab my leg,” I lunge to my right, in the way that you can lunge from a prone position, that is to say that I shift my lower body while anchoring myself with my shoulders. Meanwhile, he grabs my left thigh with both hands, and while I’m realizing exactly why I must have fallen out the time before, he answers, “I think we were watching a movie.” 

He holds tight to my leg and I bend at the waist and twist forward, my upper body flopped over the side of the bed in no way supporting my own weight until my hands smack the hardwood floor. At this point, I could hold myself up if I need to, but he’s hanging on so I’m letting him; I reach forward and smack the button on the lamp’s cord. Lights out.

“Well that still doesn’t explain how I fell.” I retort from the darkness. I grope for his hands, still holding firm to my thigh, and catch his grip. He hoists me over the side of the bed like a dinghy over the side of a ship...less gracefully though, I assure you. 

Why didn’t I just stand, bend and turn off the light, and then get back into bed?

 And miss all of the fun?

 “Why do you think we were watching a movie?”

“Because there was light.” He grins, so I know there’s more to this realization. “I remember watching….”

“What?! You saw it happen?” I’m embarrassed, not because he saw, but because I hadn’t known that he saw….until now. “You watched it happen?! What did you see?”

“Well, I saw you there, and then you went over.” At least when you fall, you have an idea where you’re going to end up. Unless, I think, you’re falling in love. See how I did that?

I watched The Love Boat. I loved The Love Boat where love is life’s sweetest reward, and if you let it float, it floats back to you promising something for everyone….It was funny, even for a kid who didn’t know much about matchmaking, dating, or care to know about any of that stuff at all. Commercials aired for lovers’ getaways in the Poconos--heart shaped beds and champagne glass jacuzzi tubs, smiling, happy couples, fascinating me. The idea of going there with someone else never occurred to me, I just really wanted to take a bubble bath in that tub! Soap operas, which I technically wasn’t supposed to watch, grossed me out anyway--couples smashing their faces together, twisting their heads this way and that. I just didn’t get it. If that was love, I wasn’t interested.

In my grandparents’ house, cutouts from the Daily News Record are taped to the utility room cabinets. My grandmother taped them, with masking tape, and there they remain, yellowed and brittle. Our Daily Bread devotionals and Love Is…comics. I don’t know whether she put them there for herself or for us, but now that I’m thinking of them, I feel compelled to go back and peek. What’s there? I know that each clipping centers on one thing--Love. How did she choose which were worthy of clipping, taping, saving? I can’t tell you. I don’t know. But I do know that she and my grandfather were married for more than sixty years and even though he’s still here and she is not--her clippings remain.

I asked my husband once if he thought we’d be married that long. He said, “God, I hope not.” We laugh a lot. He sent me roses for Valentine’s Day for years until finally, I told him he could stop. I appreciated the sentiment, but I hated knowing that he spent so much on something so temporary. (Eventually, I did tell him that I didn’t mind so much if he sent them every once in a while.) The bells and whistles are nice, and have a place, but I’d much rather have an hour or two alone--to make memories and fall all over again.

Copyright © 2015. Carrie Ellen Campbell. All Rights Reserved. http://carriellencampbell.blogspot.com. Please respect Carrie's intellectual property. Sharing blog posts is permitted, but no part of this material may be copied, downloaded, reproduced, or printed without express written consent. Contact Carrie at: carrieellencampbell@icloud.com.