The Clampits

When I first "officially" met our neighbors Brian and Amanda, they were sitting outside drinking beer while their dog was playing in an inflatable pool. They are embarrassed by our first meeting, and apparently worried about what we would think of them. To which I responded, "Yeah... we don't care. We're from Montana so... we're pretty much like the Clampits." They laughed at this, but last night we lived up to our self proclaimed title.

I have become a tad obsessed with a website for the base which is similar to Craigslist in the states called Spangdahlem yard sales. Someone had recommended the site to me as a way to find things you needed - and you can find pretty much anything on there. To date we have found a nightstand, 220v toaster, a corner cabinet, and Frank. However, I have discovered - like so many things in life, that if something really is a good deal it disappears quickly. Combining that knowledge with my lack of a job... I check out Spang yardsales multiple times throughout the day. This has paid off - especially in the case of Frank. We were the first people to call about him, and the seller got eight other calls after us. In addition to Frank, I've found a few scores of free things. Who doesn't love to get something for free? I certainly LOVE to get something free. I'm not above it. A few weeks ago I found a rocking chair someone was giving away for free. It is a wood rocking chair that was painted a bright blue which was chipping and peeling off. I figured it would be a good project for me to refinish it. And hey - free chair! When we were buying the sandpaper I'd need to start to refinish the chair, Josh asked me if I wanted to buy a sander. I laughed at him and told him no, I'd do it by hand. I thought it was just one of his man ploys to attempt to accumulate another power tool. After one afternoon of sanding away on the rocking chair I realized that he'd been asking about a sander because he truly wanted to make my life easier. I have stubbornly sanded away on this chair off and on for about a week and a half. I can only work on it for about an hour or two before my arms get tired and I get frustrated. It is coming along... slowly. I think in the end it will turn out nicely. However, I believe I'm going to let Josh buy a sander. Not only because I am tired of sanding away old blue paint by hand, but because I acquired another free project for myself. Yesterday someone listed on yard sales an "antique queen bed" for free. I responded to the add, and made arrangements to pick up the bed when Josh got off work. I really had no idea if it was just a headboard, or a full bed. I didn't know what it looked like. In all reality, I didn't care. It was free. Who cares. If it looks terrible, I'll find a way to fix it up. And hey - we're not out anything cause we didn't buy it.

Josh came home from work exhausted and tired. He wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of having to leave to go pick something up, but he changed out of his uniform as I plugged the address of the bed into our GPS. As we drove towards our destination, I could see a change in the weather. Recently we've been having cool temperatures and showers. At our house the weather had been the same as it has the last few days. However, as we drove it started to rain, which turned into a heavy downpour. Wind was whipping the trees along the roadside. Josh said the base had been under a tornado warning all afternoon. I wasn't aware that Germany, specifically our area of Germany, got tornadoes. If a tornado was to touch down, what sort of warning system do they have? We arrived at the house where the bed was and were immediately soaked to the bone the moment we stepped out of the car. I knocked on the door and a girl holding a baby opened the door. She was under five feet tall and couldn't have weighed more than 100 pounds. She looked about 16, but in reality I'm going to guess that she's around 19 or 20. She explained to me that her and her husband (she's old enough to be married? That kid is hers?) were planning on refinishing the bed themselves and just never got around to it. I took a peak at the dismantled bed and saw that it was, indeed, a bed. Headboard, footboard, and rails. All solid wood.

Josh had been busy out in the car laying the back seats down. I have teased Josh about his car, and we make fun of his little Ford hatchback, but we have hauled a lot of things (things I never thought would fit in the car) with the seats folded down. He carried out the footboard and rails, and then spent five minutes trying to arrange the headboard on top of the other pieces. He turned to me, and said the headboard was wider than the car. There was no way it was going to fit inside. We stared at each other for a moment - rain running off of my hair into my eyes and down his glasses. Josh finally said, "Well. We can drive on base and buy some rope." Luckily the bed was located right by base and it only took us about five minutes to get there. As we returned to get the headboard it started to rain harder. Josh lifted the headboard and placed it on the roof of the car. I rolled down all four of the windows about halfway. We tied the headboard to the top of the car (I say we, but it was really Josh using his Boy Scout skills to strap it down). When Josh deemed the headboard secure, we climbed into the car and sat upon wet seats. As we started to drive home in the pouring rain, the wind picked up. Clearly the tornado warning was still in effect. Josh and I each stuck an arm out the window to press down/hang on to the headboard as the wind pulled at it. I had visions of the wind ripping the headboard off the car and sending it flying backwards into the windshield and hood of the expensive Audi driving behind us. Our FREE headboard into the $100,000 Audi. I clung to the headboard as tight as I could. Within seconds my arm was soaking wet, and in a few minutes, it had started to ache from cold. As we got closer to home, it was numb. Somehow - be it good luck, or us hanging onto it - we made it home without the headboard falling off. I can only imagine what we looked like as we drove up to our house in a purple Ford hatchback with a headboard tied to the roof... and then what we looked like as we stepped outside of the car with our wet clothes clinging to our bodies. Yes. The Clampits have arrived.

Instead of carrying the heavy solid wood bed up two flights of stairs, I suggested we leave it in our garage. It will be the place where I work on it anyways. I was looking over the head and foot boards, and envisioning how much time it would take me to sand both of them by hand. Josh must have seen the look on my face, because he chuckled before asking, "So. Do you want to buy a sander now?" Yes. Yes I do.