After driving a U-Haul 920 miles from Valdosta, Georgia, to Sugar Land, Texas, I arrived to a mostly-empty apartment. It was a Sunday, and the men I had arranged to unload the truck were not available until Tuesday. I had luckily remembered to put a queen-size air mattress at the end of the truck, so I figured that two nights sleeping on the bed I would offer to guests would not be too onerous. It’s a very nice pillow top air mattress, and even came with an electric pump to blow it up. Convenient… except that the pump was broken.
So, after buying a replacement at Target, I blew up the bed. Immediately, though, I could hear there was significant air leakage, and discovered an air intake valve was missing its cap. No problem, I thought. This is clearly a job for duct tape!
The problem, though, was the valve was recessed, and there was no way to get a good seal. I loaded it up with as much tape as I could, refilled the mattress, and listened—no audible air was escaping. Sweet! I put the sheets on, and immediately went into going-to-sleep mode as it was late and I had to get up early the next morning for a presentation.
At 3:00 a.m., I woke up flat on the floor. Obviously, my duct tape repair had not been effective, probably due to the fact that there was a squirmy, 230-pound mass on top of the mattress, forcing the air out as hard as the duct tape had tried to hold it in.
I debated whether or not I could make it another three hours on the floor, and decided I had to find a solution. I tried to make a cork-like plug out of duct tape, but could hear that the seal was inadequate even without me on the mattress. I had no actual cork, but I did have several unopened boxes of stuff I had brought from Georgia. So, at 3:05 in the morning, I started opening boxes, looking for something, anything, I could use as a plug. It had to be pretty round, but pliable enough to be snug into the valve opening.
I was into the third box when I rediscovered my “inaction” figure.
This is something I got at a banking trade show a decade ago when Ben Bernanke was speaking. One of the ICBA vendors had created these squeezable Ben figures, but as you can see, this looks a lot more like me that it does Mr. Bernanke.
Regardless of the likeness, there was a bald head, it was pliable, and it was just the right size for the valve. Into the breech went my inaction figure, and, listening carefully, I heard no escape of air. Refilling the mattress, I rose on air pillows, and quickly drifted off to sleep, confident that the bald head of Mr. Bernanke would hold firm for the rest of the night. (Hey, this guy had his fingers on the pulse of the nation’s monetary policy; I figured he would be fine with this simple job.)
It’s kind of a funny story, but it does illustrate that at times, we must be resourceful and come up with innovative solutions to problems, including middle-of-the-night ones. Though, I could have just have stayed at the local hotel for two nights until all the furniture was installed. Now that would have been smarter thinking…