The Mattress Caper

In the days near the time of the Great Shit Blockage it happened that someone
passed on some information to Harry (the hero of our story)about some
mattresses being available for the taking. The only thing required would be
to carry them back to the house on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. Now, you must
realize that these Krakenhuizen weren't furnished. So, whatever the residents
could scrounge up would be their decor (if decor isn't too fancy a word). It
seems that Harry was living in a room with a young girl from Germany, but they
lacked anything to cushion their dreaming (and whatever else they did while
reclining). In the room sort of next to Harry was a young American guy named
Mark. Mark had been sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor, and was excited
to hear about the prospect of scoring a free mattress.

It turns out that the free mattresses were aboard a garbage barge in one of
the canals maybe a kilometer or kilometer and a half from the house on
Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. Harry and Mark set out with joyous hearts to
"bring home the bacon" so to speak. They arrived at the location, and as luck
would have it, there were two mattresses available in and amongst the garbage.
The two young men scurried down to the barge to claim their mattresses. One
thing of note: neither of the two fellows was a very big person, so when it
came time to manhandle the double mattresses...well, you can imagine. They
struggled mightily to get their treasure up to street level, but then they had
the daunting task ahead of them to transport their booty back to the house.

Of course, these to guys weren't living in a krakenhuis because the had lots
of money, so they had no vehicle to assist with hauling the mattresses. They
didn't want to take them one at a time, because to leave one of them behind
was to risk it not being there when they returned. They decided to stand the
mattresses on their sides with a little space between them. Then, the two guys
would stand single file in the space, and lift the mattresses with one hand
gripping one mattress and the other hand gripping the second one. Remember,
that neither of the two fellows was very big, so when they lifted the
mattresses, the had to hold them almost above their heads to get them off of
the ground.

They set off for home. Now, picture if you can, two mattresses with two pairs
of feet barely visible below them, and no heads visible above them making
their way down the city sidewalks of Amsterdam. Actually, it probably wasn't
that unusual for Amsterdam. Anyway, these two boys soon became winded. In
fact, it reached a point that they could move the mattresses no more than 5 or
10 meters without stopping to rest. Pick them up, walk ten steps, put them
down, catch the breath, pick them up...Suffice it say, the trip home took a
long time, and a spent lot of energy.

Arriving at the doorway didn't complete the trip. You must realize that when
these picturesque houses were built on the quaint canals they tended to build
up and not out. That means, they had some stairs to climb. This particular
house had no floor at street level, the "first" floor was really a floor above
the street. These two young men, resided on the "second" floor, so they
really had to haul the mattresses up to the third floor. By the way, the
Dutch made every effort to conserve space, so the stairways were quite narrow.
Imagine now, if you can, the two exhausted youngsters trying to wrestle the
mattresses up the stairs.

They succeeded! And believe me, they slept well that night. It wasn't even
until the next day that they wondered if there might be lice in the
mattresses.