broken things

I should say at the outset that I have far less to complain about than Alice, currently lying on a mattress awaiting gallbladder surgery tomorrow, and (judging by her discomfort), not a moment too soon.   However.   She's lying on a mattress because last night, just as we'd gone to bed, there was a dreadful cracking and splintering noise, and the bed collapsed (no jokes, Please ...).   The movers had put it together in a far from responsible or sensible manner, and the wood just gave way round the bolts.   Luckily the cats fled - if there were any underneath - at the first sounds of devastation, and in any case it lurched down onto plastic boxes beneath.   But it's not easy demolishing a bedframe at night when one's exhausted, and nervous about teaching the next day, and (in the case of one of us) wilting and wincing from a gallstone.   I managed it, with a kind of chisel, and brute fore, but it wasn't fun.   And then - where does one put pieces of a very heavy bed that are too weighty for one person to carry downstairs?   In my study, I guess - which as you can see is none too spacious at the best of times - a desk-width.

And then, to add insult to injury, the plastic hinge on my MacBook Air chose this evening to crack and splinter, too.   No, the bed didn't fall on it.   No, I didn't drop it.   And according to an internet search, this is a Recognized Design Fault.   But now I can't close the computer - and yes, that is another one in the background, but it's elderly and none too stable.   Bah.  Humbug.