Why it's best that I'm a computer rather than physical engineer

(Or: I am retarded)

So, funny story...my roommate had to move her bed from our townhouse to her storage unit because she's leaving for Ecuador imminently. I advised her that she should probably protect her mattress somehow, but we didn't have anything that would really fit around and/or cover the the mattress. That's when she had her inspiration: green plastic wrap, which she had a fuckload of from packing.

So we proceeded to wrap her entire mattress in this bizarre, green, squeaky plastic stuff, which involved us running around the mattress haphazardly, climbing awkwardly underneath it while it was suspended on the couch, etc. But we did it. Sealed tight, it was! We were very proud of ourselves. I had a brief nightmarish image of my roommate returning to gooey, green, melted plastic that had been cooked onto her mattress in her absence, but luckily I was assured that this would not happen by external parties. Also, miscellaneous, discolored, gooey substances are pretty much par for the course for her bed anyway...

So, we proceeded to load the mattress and box spring onto her friend's flatbed truck, which already contained her inverted desk and some shelves. Now, the only way to get them all to fit was to stand all the pieces on their sides, in particular the mattress and box spring. This all works fine, except that the mattress and box spring are fairly unstable. They were leaning heavily over the not-high-enough truck wall, and one good bump in the road would have sent them flying. So I decreed that we needed a way to bind the mattress and box spring to the furniture. So far so good.

So we come inside. We figure out we have nothing resembling string. Know what we do have? That's right: green plastic wrap.

So outside we go, proceeding to wrap the plastic aroun and around the mattress, box spring, and furniture. Everything seems fine. It's not the most secure thing in the world, but I figure it should do on the short trip to the storage place.

Then we get on the road, and the proverbial shit hits the fan. On the first turn, the mattress and box spring keel over, dragging the furniture with them, and suddenly the mattresses are dangling dangerously over the side of the truck like a shitfaced co-ed on spring break. I nimbly leap from the front seat to the back, open the window, and pull everything back upright. I then stay there to steady the whole piece with my hand as we approach the onramp to the freeway.

(You just said, "Oh god..." didn't you?)

By now, the keeling over incident has stretched the plastic to the point where it's barely useful any more. Everything seems to be willing to stay upright so long as there's no centripedal force acting on it, so I assume everything should be okay from here on out since we're on the freeway and going in basically a straight line.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Interesting thing about mattresses I hadn't thought of: turns out, they make pretty damn good airfoils, especially when placed on the outside edge of a truck. And in such a case, they are airfoils turned sideways, so instead of pulling up as in an airplane wing, they pull out.

These were the kind of philosophical thoughts I might have had if I hadn't been clinging to the mattress for dear life as it pulled mightily towards the side of the truck, begging to be set free and follow its fortune on the asphalt of US-101. I prayed that it wouldn't fly off and kill someone. At least not anyone anybody else cared about or would, you know, sue over. Meanwhile, my roommate was laughing her ass off. Inconsiderate bitch.

The decision was quickly made to pull off the freeway and take side streets. After that, we drove like an Asian grandma, and everything was fine in the end. But for fuck's sake, never let me design anything important like a bridge.