Like almost all winter migrants to Jackson, I began with house hunting. After one week, through the melting pot that is the local homeless shelter (Teton Library), I had a housemate and a place to call home. A large and practical unfurnished condo on the east side of town.

I have no furniture however. I’ve been on the road carrying little more than a backpack for the last four months. Still, this wasn’t that big a problem: furniture is overrated. Our third housemate will arrive with some communal stuff, and if I tell myself enough times that I prefer minimalism it might come true.

Still, I did need a bed, and beds are expensive. While not on a super tight budget, I don’t want to unnecessarily spend money on luxuries when there are other essential items that need buying (such as my new Gotama’s). So I stopped by Browse ‘n’ Buy and picked myself up a nice single mattress for $5. Problem solved.

I’m rarely satisfied however, so when I saw a queen bed with box spring and frame for $40 in the paper I pounced on the chance to upgrade. A spare mattress is always useful and I had bought the skis by then so I saw no reason to hold out. After a quick phone call and a dubious meeting in a recycling station, I was inspecting the bed. A stain is to be expected on a bed for this price, and it wasn’t that large so I took it.

Scott, the seller, helped me load it up, and even drove it down to my place for me (later refusing money for his trouble, giving the wise advice to spend it down at the Brew Pub). As we’re unloading, Scott recognizes my neighbor Chris (a ski patroller) as an old buddy of his and they reminisce and catch up for 10 minutes.

I’m starting to learn what a close-knit town Jackson is.

Back to the bed: Disaster. Every angle. Every position and rotation. We tried them all, but there was no way to get the box spring upstairs. The ceiling is too low and the bottom wall too close. I had several options – make do without the box spring, give up and sell it, hopefully getting my $40 back, or find some way of manipulating it so that it would fit.

I think everyone who knows me, knows that the bed ended up upstairs, my manipulation tool of choice being a rotary saw.

With three cuts through the wooden base of the box spring, I had the thing flexible enough to bend up the stairs and into the bedroom. $5 of two by four pine and 15 screws later, I had it back in its former glory, strong and proud. Saving the bed, and suspecting I’m the only person in the condo block to have a queen bed, I was pleased and smug.

An amusing anecdote, but the interesting quirk to this story is that a week later I bumped into Scott again in a bar in Wilson (maybe the town is just small rather than close knit) so had the chance to regale him with the latest adventures of his old bed. We shared a beer over the story, he laughed in all the right places and thought it was sufficiently Jackson, so suggested I write it up for the themountainculture.