A firm-ative action

When's the last time you bought a mattress? I went out today in search of Mama Bear's perfect bed, and found out more than I want to know about them.

I don't need the box spring, or foundation, or whatever they call it now. I have an antique bed, and only the mattress will fit on it, and barely, as it's a bit shorter than the standard now. People just weren't as tall a hundred fifty or so years ago, I suppose, because this bed is only 72 inches long between the headboard and the footboard. Matters not for me, as I am only 60 inches tall.

I inherited this bed in 1975 from my great aunt, and she had told me that she inherited it in the 1930's from a doctor she used to work for, and he was born in that bed. He was 80 when he died. It's an OLD bed. I don't even want to think what that thing has seen.

It still has the mattress on it that my great aunt had. Goodness knows how old the thing is. The bedspring underneath is an open type spring that makes a very satisfying squeak when you get on the bed. It's been the guest bed (I've had very few guests) until last year, when I moved out on my own, and I've been sleeping on it since. Or attempting to sleep on it. This old cotton tick may be the reason for my insomnia.

I looked up the major brands of mattresses on the web, found who sells what in town, and set off to see what is out there. The first place I went, there was a buzzer on the front door that sounded as I walked in. I saw some movement in the far end of the large showroom, but no one spoke to me. I have a rule of thumb. If a salesperson does not greet me in some manner in two minutes, I leave. All they have to do is acknowledge my presence; that is good enough, because I will wait my turn. This first fellow almost didn't make the cut, and there was no one else in the showroom.

When a store is full of mattresses, and one is rather obviously looking at the bedding, the question "What may I help you with today?" seems quite silly. I had an overwhelming urge to say I wanted to buy a sofa. I asked if this store would sell me only a mattress, not a set, and the salesman said he could order me one, but people never buy full size mattresses anymore unless they are for kids' beds, so they don't stock the better mattresses in that size. He tried to sell me up in size, but I countered with this is an heirloom bed and I am determined to have a new mattress for it. About that time, a pretty young thing in a very short skirt waltzes in, and he drops me to wait on her. "Try some of them out", he says, and abandons me amidst a sea of foam mattresses. I left.

Another place in town sells a good brand, so I stopped by there. This store also sells only mattresses; in fact it's called Mattress King. Surely they have something in here for me. Some fat guy is sitting at a desk in the middle of the showroom, diddling around on a computer, from my angle looking like he's playing a game. About 30 seconds after I come through the door, he finally greets me and bellows out to someone in the back that there is a customer.

The fellow comes out of the back, and politely tells me he has a truck unloading in the back and he will be right back. He looks vaguely familiar. I go start looking at the price tags and bouncing on the beds. (I didn't really bounce, but I did lie down on them.) The beds are nice, but so are the prices. Holy crap, Batman! Can I afford to get a decent mattress?

By the time he returns, I have worked my way down the line, feeling like Goldilocks at the Bear residence. Some of them are too soft, some of them are totally unyielding. Then I found "just right". Of course, it was about the top of the line. The only thing I could do to make it more expensive would be to custom order the outer fabric. He asks about the wants and needs, and he suggests I might consider the new ultra foam mattress because that would certainly fit my bed. I tried one out, and it's comfy enough, but he could not give me a decent answer about how when this "memory foam" would develop dementia. I went back to the standard type.

When I mentioned to him I only wanted the mattress, not the underneath part, he did a sudden backpedal and said "Oh, we can't honor a warranty on the mattress if you don't buy the set". What the hell is a warranty on a mattress anyway? I told him I wasn't going to use it for a trampolene, so I wasn't worried about a warranty. Geez.

Ok, down to the price. He told me he could knock off $300 for the box springs. Then he started in about financing. Whoa. I am going to pay cash for this thing. How about a discount, mister? I think he must have sold cars at one time, because he did the old calculator thing back at the desk, then came back with a roughly ten percent discount.

I ask for his card and write the info down on the back. Then it hits me and him about the same time. I see his name, and it's the guy who lived next door to me when we first bought our house. He had moved down the street to another house a couple years later. He asked what my last name was, and I replied it wasn't the same as it used to be, and I didn't live there any more. A little embarrassing, after the trampolene comment. I told him that I was still shopping, but the deal looked promising, and I left.

I still have one more place in town to look, maybe two. But buying a mattress is a big commitment. This is the last one I will ever buy. I need to do it right this time.