How Not To Transport A Mattress

Not the actual car - Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

It was early afternoon with the sun high in the sky as my friend P and I traveled south on A1A. We were heading to a house in South Melbourne Beach. It was only 6 miles down the road. As we traveled south on the main road, life passed by. There was a 7-11 and other convenience stores along the way. People were walking and biking on the bike path. We passed a bait shop. The parking lot was full with fisherman getting their supplies for the day. On both sides of the road were several green areas of undeveloped land. Every once in a while, people would dart across the road, heading to their beach access. Some people were fortunate to have enough money to build their exquisite houses up against the beach. They were the lucky ones. I can imagine their view. They probably had their beds pointed toward the ocean so they could wake up to the sunrise. I’m sure it was spectacular.

Our target was a mattress. P had notified me that he had bought a mattress and needed help in picking it up. I met him over at his new place. He had moved to the townhouses that were immediately on the other side of the wall from where I lived and he used to live. I was still in high school at the time. I think this was during the summer.

We arrived at the house where the mattress was. It was at least a full-size mattress. Then, there was the transport. This is where it gets interesting. It was too large to put into the car. P put it on top of the vehicle. The roof was not totally flat, it was rounded at the corners like every other vehicle. There was no rack on the top of the vehicle. He brought a rope and tried as best as he could to tie it off to the roof. But there was no place to tie it to. That’s where I came in. Can you spell disaster?

My job as the passenger was to hold onto two pieces of rope on my side of the car. I am a skinny person so this was going to be extra difficult. He was 10 years older than me and much more muscular. He had two pieces of rope as well. Of course, he had to drive the car. So holding onto rope and driving was going to take some guts. As I remember it, the windows were open. Do you think I had a good time of it? Nope. Imagine holding onto two pieces of rope with a car traveling at 40 to 50 mph while hoping that the mattress doesn’t fly off.

I held those pieces of rope as tight as I could while pulling them down. If I let go, the mattress would have spiraled out of control and flung off the car. I was in agony while he drove the car.

I can laugh about it now but I was not laughing then. We did talk along the way, although I don’t remember what we talked about. Probably just telling each other to hold on a bit longer, that we are almost home. We had to travel about 5 miles back to his place, which equated to about 10 minutes.

We just hoped the mattress, and we would make it back in one piece.

Once we pulled up to his townhouse, we were happy. We had made it. Success!

The next day, I’m sure I was pretty sore. I had held on with such a tight grip.

Conclusion

The lesson learned here is if you have to do this again, please find someone with a pickup truck. I’d gladly still help but it would have been much safer with a truck.

Until next time, happy reading.

-Matt