Spare Room.
I really wish I had a spare room. I mean, we have E’s room, but it is not spare. It is stuffed with guitars, amps, computer stuff, mixing stuff, and other stuff.
I think none of my friends who live locally have spare rooms. We live in much smaller living spaces than the national average. Arwen yearns for another 300 square feet. I know I could use it, for sure.
This is coming up just now because E’s brother and his girlfriend are coming to stay with us. Why? Because they are impoverished grad students, and E’s brother is giving a paper at UBC. Not because they really communicate with E regularly. Because they don’t. E and his brother once went three years without speaking.
But I don’t have anywhere to put them. One can crash on the couch and one can crash on the floor, but I have no spare room bed. Anne of Green Gables would be horrified.
I feel sort of embarrassed by my lack of spare room (35 and you don’t have a place to put guests?? On somebody’s yardstick, you’re a big, fat, zero!) but also ashamed that I feel embarrassed about it (Almost no one has a spare room around here. Single-family residences are divided into duplexes, triplexes or more. Even my landlord doesn’t have a spare room!)
So, with no cash to get a suitable-for-just-being-a-sofa sofa bed, they’ll be sleeping rough chez MonkeyPants. What else am I going to do?
Some Stuff | Liz May 21, 2008
By sarah, May 22, 2008 @ 5:56 am
I don’t have a spare room, but I do have a spare bed. I have a queen-size air mattress. It plugs into the wall to inflate itself, and I can make it up with real sheets. Then it deflates and fits in a bag in a closet. It cost $80 at Canadian Tire. Less than one night in an hotel.
By rachel, May 22, 2008 @ 7:53 am
When are they coming? We have a full-sized futon you could borrow. I’m not proposing lugging the frame over (unless you’re feeling really ambitious and have muscle to help us—it’s metal and awkward), but the futon pad itself is carry-able. It would probably fit on your living room floor (trying to remember how big that was…) and then you could shove it out of the way in the daytime.
By gen, May 22, 2008 @ 8:58 am
I also have an inflatable double mattress and a queen size that we use for camping. It only takes 5 minutes to inflate, so you could put it away during the day. I can drop it off today or tomorrow.
By Liz, May 22, 2008 @ 11:28 am
Thank you all. I’ll speak with E about it when he gets home and see what we’re going to do.
By Arwen, May 22, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
It is sort of strange to live in Canada with all the space, and be four people in 850sqft. In Japan, it makes some sense. Ditto China. But we’re the second largest landmass and have like, you know, four people in the whole country.
Ach.
Don’t make me yearn too much. I’ll have to move to montreal: land where the poverty brownstones are like luxury homes here. Because I never did mind snow, and I’m getting better at summers.
By Arwen, May 22, 2008 @ 12:02 pm
Funny; inventory’s just turning the corner, and NOW I’m getting itchy. Patience, skywalker.
By elswhere, May 22, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
We actually do have a spare room, but we’re out here in alberta, a/k/a burnaby.
Also—we have a red fold-up-single-mattress thingy that’s pretty comfortable, which you’re welcome to borrow. It folds up into thirds to make a sort of chair/ottoman. And it’s red!
I’m going out to Mt Pleasant this afternoon for MG’s piano lesson if you want to meet up for a handoff.
By Beth, May 22, 2008 @ 10:40 pm
Okay, I’m 58 and I just got a spare room. Well, except when the stepson is in town and then it’s his room, but the other 10 months, it’s spare.
But … um… like I said, I’m 58.
By Liz, May 22, 2008 @ 11:36 pm
Gen, I might have to get that air mattress. We think that might work. We can prop it in E’s room without knocking anything over.
Rachel, we’d grab the futon, but we don’t actually have an ‘out-of-the-way for something that acts like a futon.
Els, I think I know the thing you mean. They;re super-comfortable, but you can get a crick in your neck if you lean on it folded up. Am I thinking of the right thing?
Beth, I’ll aim to be 58 and have a spare room. I can deal with that.
By rachel, May 23, 2008 @ 8:48 am
Understood. I remembered your cat only later, so it’s all probably just as well.
Which is almost too bad, because I keep wanting to call Gen “The General”, and tell her I’ll defeat her next time. It coulda been funny, but I just don’t have the pique.
By stephanie, May 23, 2008 @ 12:07 pm
So they are staying with your for awhile then? Hmmm…I don’t know. Tough one. It’s not like you create more space.
Our spare room is my office. There is a futon in there. So we put guests up there. Sometimes I think it would be nice to just say it’s my office.
By Liz, May 23, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
Rachel, I can honestly say that in the fourteen-odd years of our friendship, I have never once thought to call Gen The General. Maybe it’s time to start!
Stephanie, they’re here for three days, but it’ll be a long three days.