more tales from the road

Alfred said he liked my post last week about our trip, so here's another one for him. I think some of you may have already heard this story.

The place: Seattle. It was hot. Seattle in general, and Mike's apartment in particular, is not air conditioned. Mike had graciously offered us his bed, but we declined, saying that the couch and air mattress would be just fine for us. Turns out that was a mistake. His bedroom was somehow a lot cooler than the living room, for one thing, and Alfred managed to deflate the air mattress during the night. He has a talent for that. I fared better on the couch, though since I was kind of sweaty I kept sticking to the couch and had to peel myself off of it whenever I rolled over. I tried to keep myself wrapped in the sheet to prevent this, but then the whole hotter-than-hell thing kicked back in. And it wasn't just the heat. Since it was so warm, we kept the windows open at night to try to get some cooler air inside. Mike's apartment was about, oh, 20 feet from 2 major interstates.

You could probably literally get a running start and jump onto I5. So it was loud. And hot. And Alfred somehow deflated the air mattress. The second night, he and I switched sleeping surfaces. I was fine on the air mattress, but he of course was unhappy on the couch. And Mike and I had to listen to him whine all day about being tired. So Mike got proactive. He asked me (via text, with Alfred in the same room as us, if I recall correctly) if it was ok if he crushed up some sleeping pills and put them in Alfred's drink. I said sure. So Mike very generously offered to get us all drinks. He was even nice enough to give Alfred the frozen mug. After awhile, Mike took our glasses back to the kitchen (he had noticed some floaters in Alfred's glass and didn't want Alfred to see them) and soon after that we went to bed. And our dear friend Alfred slept like a baby. Success! He's so much happier with a good night's sleep. Now, just so you don't worry that Alfred's seeing this for the first time right now, Mike did tell him about this the next day. And when we finally left Seattle, we had a few doses of sleeping pills in hand, in case of future emergencies. Thanks, Mike.