I was thinking about Shakespeare’s will, which included a mention of his “second-best bed” being left to his wife

… and I began to find the whole thing just unbearably funny when I started imagining how I might address beds in my own will.

I have four beds, if you count the extra one for disaster shelter in the basement… or five, if you count the couch, which technically is a small bed… or maybe eight, if you count each of the three king beds as two twin beds, which they technically are, underneath the mattress toppers.

And this is just mattresses– the “bedframes” are all made up of low NSF shelving with bed slats over it, and there isn’t a whole lot of difference between any of the beds in that respect.

I intend to have, eventually, a polycule of at least four… sharing all these beds in some arrangement or other, though probably not an unchanging one.

And, if I somehow fail to be immortal and have to leave my worldly possessions to my polycule…. I could just royally mess with everyone by being almost but not quite as vague as Shakespeare.

“My second-best bed goes to my best spouse. If two spouses are tied for best, the second-best bed may be either divided into two twin beds (if it’s one of the kings) or shared in perpetuity by the two best spouses, who are now forbidden from ever separating”

“My second-best bed– which is the second of the two twin mattresses making up my best bed– goes to my second-best spouse, and my first-best bed –the first of those twin mattresses – goes to my first-best spouse. In case of debate over which mattress of my best bed is the first and which is the second: the first is the one on the right side of the bed. (Not as in right and left, but as in which side of the bed you have a better day if you get out on.)”

“My second-best bed (as decided by majority vote via a ranked-choice ballot among my spouses) goes to my second-best spouse (as decided by majority vote via a ranked-choice ballot among my beds). Whether something counts as a bed or a spouse is decided by how often anyone has slept on top of it within the past 6 months.”

(Whoever I end up living with, they better not EVER let me die, hahaha)