Rico
Buying a bed used to be easy. There were just two sizes: twin and double. And two kinds: soft and firm. And only one place to go: the nearest department store.
These days, purchasing a mattress is as complex and confusing as buying a house in a country in which I don’t speak the language.
“I want a firm, double mattress,” I told the salesperson at Sleep Magic.
“You mean full?” he corrected me.
He pointed me toward one of 500 beds in the showroom and handed me a gauzy piece of fabric to protect me from the cooties of thousands of heads that had previously laid on the same pillows. Can’t I just sit on the beds? Do I have to really lie down and try them on for size? According to Sleeper Magic, I had no choice. I felt foolish.
“How does that feel?” he asked, in the tone of a psychotherapist.
“Um, OK.”
Goldilocks knew which bed was “too soft” and which was “too hard.” They all felt the same to me. Who can pretend to sleep under florescent lights in a strip mall? I obediently tried out mattress after mattress like a game show contestant, unsure if I was going up or down in price.
“I like this one,” I said.
“Of course you do,” he beamed. “That’s a hypo-allergenic, dual temperature control mattress, handmade in Finland that converts into a flotation device. It’s $8,500 but, if you buy it today, I can give it to you for just $7,900.”
I thanked him profusely, took his card and headed to a department store. No one was in the mattress department. I had a platoon of beds and a been-there-done-that saleswoman all to myself. The mattresses were the same brands I had seen at Sleep Magic but with different names. There, a mattress was called Rainforest Mist. At the department store, it was Moon Glow.
“It’s from the same company,” confided the saleswoman. “They just change the name for each retailer.”
Huh. Just like women who work in the sex trade aren’t really all named Jasmine. The department store saleswoman put me through the same drill as the previous salesperson—from mattress to mattress—but with a more honest approach.
“They all feel the same,” I said.
“But you like that one better.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because on all the other mattresses, you fidgeted a lot and looked confused. On that one, you seemed more relaxed.”
Eureka! She gets me! The price seemed reasonable. By then, anything under $1,000 sounded like a bargain. But when I told her I just want the mattress, not the box spring, the temperature changed.
“No box spring? You won’t get a warranty. If it falls apart within the first 90 days …”
Falls apart? Wait a sec. I thought we had built a relationship based on mutual trust.
“And you’ll have to pay for shipping.”
Uh oh. It had been a long time since I strapped a mattress to the top of my car. The saleswoman didn’t excuse herself to talk to her manager, but I could see where this was going. Buy both the mattress and the box spring or the Teamsters were going to picket my bedroom. I took a last look at the mattress of my dreams and slunk back out to my car. When did buying a bed become as intimidating as applying for a mortgage?
In college, no one had a box spring or, god forbid, a bed frame. We slept on mattresses of dubious origin, thrown directly on the floor. To have had a “real” bed would’ve been a political statement of the wrong kind. There was an unspoken health benefit to this arrangement, considering it was impossible to fall out of such a bed, regardless if one “inhaled” or not. Plus, it gave excellent support, no matter how many people cavorted in it at the same time.
Ironically, many of these undergrad mattresses were made of foam, the cheapest possible option. How did foam become a pricey luxury item? I’m going to blame the Danes. Or is it the Finns?
All I know is that by the time I arrived home, my 15-year-old bed didn’t look so bad. I lay down on it, fully clothed, as if I was in a mattress store. I wasn’t fidgeting. It felt firm in all the right places. I closed my eyes. Yes. This one’s just right.
Via Purpleclover.com
