Adventures of a Mattress

No matter what it is with a mattress, it takes two. Understatement of the century, right?

Well, when it comes to my wild hairs, I tend to forget subtle things like that. So, here’s my latest adventure, this time with a mattress.

I don’t often think about the comforts of life. Some things just aren’t that important. Like the bed I’d been sleeping on. It was over 20 years old, it started out as a soft-sided waterbed and ended up about as uncomfortable a surface to sleep on as you can get. It just didn’t matter. It was a minor irritant until I got myself jiggled around and nested in.

Lo and behold, a new outlet store opened along my route, so I stopped in yesterday, on the way home from work. It was pretty dingy inside, bare concrete floor, no aesthetics whatsoever and beds all over the place.

Of course, the most expensive model met me at the door, and I spent a few moments ooo-ing and ah-ing over the plush decadence. Until I saw the price tag. Nope, that one’s not for me.

And of course the pretty little skinny thing struck up her salesman’s pitch and would not point me in the direction of the more affordable stock. Not to be deterred, I left her in my dust as I struck out to explore more. According to her, she only carries top-of-the-line wholesale… Whatever.

Not halfway down the aisle between the beds in stock, I stop. Ah, there it is: Memory foam. It had a little pull in the cover which got me $57 off the price tag. It was mine.

Between the two of “us girls” we got the mattress onto the bed of my truck. I pulled out a tie-down thingy, one of those things with the straps and the little ratchet to tighten it and proceeded to fumble around until I felt sure that the mattress was secure.

Alas, it wasn’t. A tanker truck flew past me going the opposite direction on the highway, and there she blows. In rush hour traffic, no less. The mattress flew off and landed in the standing water in the ditch along side the road. I hit my brakes, and so did the gentleman behind me. Both of us bit the bullet and backed up against the traffic until we came to my poor, brand new, soaking wet mattress.

Wet memory foam. Ugh, the thing was heavy. But, between the two of us, we got it back into the bed of my truck. Thank you kind man for stopping and helping me! Not only did he smush the mattress down into the bed of the truck, he assembled and used that ratchet thingy the right way so that it actually worked. Oh, I so wanted to invite him home with me to 1.) undo that strap thingy, and 2.) help me get that wet, heavy mattress inside my house!

I got the thing home, backed the truck as close to the door as I could and spent a few moments watching Odin spook at the sight of the mattress in the bed of the truck. Funny horse.

It took a few minutes of close inspection and thwarted logic to figure out that ratchet thingy to get it to loosen up and turn that mattress free. The memory foam just sprung back to shape like it was supposed to, and I surveyed to assess the damage. It wasn’t as wet as I thought it was, and only a few stray leaves were stuck to it since the plastic covering didn’t survive the mattress’s flight through the air and into the water.

Now for the next step of getting it into the house. I had assumed that since it was so flexible, I would be able to grab it good and get it up the stairs and into the house, no problem. Maybe I could have if 1.) it wasn’t so big, 2.) if the wind wasn’t blowing, and 3.) it wasn’t wet. Ass-u-me strikes again. But, since it was only me, I had to figure something out. And I worked at it. And worked at it.

Once again, a kind person comes to the rescue. Jennifer was next door, and she came over to help. Between the two of us, it was no problem getting the mattress up into the house. Whew, thank you Jennifer!

I took it from there. Inside, it was no problem wrestling that thing around. All’s well that ends well, and I slept like a charm. For 6 hours, that is. I woke up at 3:00 a.m., wide awake and feeling my oats.

Oh, this wasn’t what you expected? Well, maybe next time I write about my mattress, it will be “Adventures On…” instead of “Adventures Of…”

Or maybe not.