1. My Parents' Bed - When I was really young my mom and dad slept in an old brass bed. It was squeaky, like brass on brass squeaky, but it was big and they had a little TV you could watch. I wasn't allowed to hang out in their bed a lot, just when I was sick or had a nightmare or had special permission to watch their TV because everyone was watching something else downstairs, but it was always a treat. I liked to do somersaults across it a lot which might be why I wasn't allowed in as often as I would have liked.
2. My Brother's Bed - Like I said, I wasn't allowed in my parent's bed all that often. I'd try to sneak in in the middle of the night under the guise of a bad dream and get sent away; my mother was a great detector of lies. So if I woke up in the night lonely or creeped out, I would slither into my brother's room with my Garfield comforter and sleep at the foot of his bed. He has always been a ridiculously heavy sleeper, so this was an easy enough feat. He slept in this weird dark wooden bed that looked like a sleigh. It felt a little bigger than a twin, but not much.
3. The Guest Bed - When I was in my early teens my dad bought a guest bed for our spare room. It was an inexpensive double with a floral comforter and new pillows. We had some house guests for a few weeks but when they left, that was it. I started sleeping on the bed for after school naps, but eventually moved into it permanently. Then I had two rooms.
4. The Lemos' House - The Lemos' were our family friends. I was closest with Cat, who had a huge bed with a sunk mattress covered with egg crate foam and this heavy mink blanket. Her bedroom faced a wall of forest so it was dark and it was always cold and quietly noisy with the fan going and the radio going. She rubbed her feet together as she fell asleep and it was so soothing. I loved sleep overs because the sleep was so good. Cat's room was just one place to sleep in the house, though. We also snuggled up in her sisters' rooms, there was a guest bed that I loved and also slept in for a few months one year (pushed into the corner of the loft; it was next to a window like a day bed and felt really romantic), their couches are the reason my living room today is just a giant nest, and when her mom and dad were gone we would get into their bed and watch their TV. I also have a fond memory of sleeping with Cat's brother when we were in elementary and mysteriously got the same sickness where we puked red Kool-Aid. He had Ninja Turtle or Transformers sheets and we watched cartoons all day while the girls brought us crackers.
5. My Marital Bed - My dad and stepmom bought Kiah and I a bed when we got married. Buying a bed is an insanely stressful process because it's like... you are going to be sleeping on this thing for the next decade, maybe longer. We just kind of flopped around on the showroom models and then quickly decided because we were uncomfortable with this guy staring at us. The whole thing took about 15 minutes which is insane because buying a bed should be like buying a car. Luckily we ended up picking a dream of a bed (though I refused the mattress cover because I thought it was like a dumb upsale item, like how people at shoe stores are always trying to get you to buy socks. Pro-Tip: BUY THE MATTRESS COVER). Our bed is huge and kind of spartan, I feel, in spite of the 6~ pillows and the down blanket. It's so comfortable that sleeping anywhere else is torture, but I really just want to push it beyond the limits of comfort. More pillows, more blankets. I'm on a constant search for the perfect duvet cover, and am now considering some egg crate foam.