There's Nuttin' Like a Frozen Mattress

Way back in the day when we were young and mindless, we traded a bag of Tupperware for a little dog. Sidney was a Maltese who thought he was a bouncing cat. He was teeny, but he could jump almost as high as my chest. And he also "perched" on pillows on the sofa and just sat around gazing at everyone as if he were royalty. (Well, except for when he was into that licking himself thing.) (Come to think of it, he also had a weird addiction to peeing on plastic shopping bags, but this story isn't really about Sidney, it's about beds.)

We soon figured out that a double bed was not big enough for three of us. Husband, Wife and Little Dog. Now, we had managed in a double bed just fine without the dog. Husband who is 6'1", wife who is 5'8.5", and even an occasional breastfeeding baby in the middle. But when the little dog came into the picture, we just HAD to get a king size bed. Sidney would lay at the end of the bed in between us, and end up a blanket hog. So off we went to buy a BIG bed. Compared to a double, a king size bed felt like a football field when we got it home! If we had to, we could manage two adults, two squirmy kids AND a blanket hogging little dog. (Until Daddy kicked everyone (but me) out of the bed so we could sleep...but room-wise, we had enough to go around.)

That bed lasted us through six houses. Well, a year in the sixth house. Moving a king size extra thick pillow top mattress set is a feat to perform. King size inner spring mattresses have some hinge system built in, so if need be, they can be folded. But since we moved here, we realized that you can only fold a mattress so many times before it gets a hill in the middle of it that won't go away. We have lived a year like that and the back problems we both have been feeling among other aches and pains have just forced us to consider a new mattress set. Husband insisted on Tempur-Pedic. I waited for one of his days off from work, but his schedule has been overloaded lately, and he just told me he trusted me to pick out a good one. So I dropped kids off with my dad and stole my mom, and off we went to the furniture store.

We first were greeted by two young girls sitting in front of a pile of plush throw blankets. "Would you like a free blanket? All you have to do is sign the paper with your phone number. Someone will phone you the next time we are having a give-away." So we chose two blankets after much discussion over colors and headed further into the store. The salespeople stand there like kids in a Red-Rover playground game, nearly arm-in-arm so you can't actually get very far into the store until you have a salesperson with you. I'm sure they do Rock-Paper-Scissors to figure out who gets the next customer coming through the door (they work on commission, afterall.) We got a sober looking middle aged man, who had NO idea what he was getting himself into with my mom and I: Two housewives who had escaped from... a) a retired man who is obsessed with telling everyone about Armageddon and... b) a household where 2/5 of the family have Attention Deficit Disorder. Both of which rely on shopping for psychotherapy.

I told him I was in the market for a new mattress, and he led us to the bedding area. We stopped off at some display that you're supposed to lay on -- it looked like some kind of science project -- somehow it figures out if you need a firm or soft mattress by how you lay on the test mattress or something. I don't know, I didn't want to go through all that. I told him all I wanted was a Tempur-Pedic. So we avoided the bed test and headed off to the Tempur-Pedic section. I wanted to start at the cheap end because the top of the line set would require me to sell off two children and my mom's gold fillings. The very first one I laid on was wonderful! I sunk right into it. It's called "Cloud" and the name fit it perfectly. Mom laid on one side and I on the other and I told her, "I'm going to flip around. Tell me if you feel it." So I flipped and tossed and turned and she said, "Nope, I didn't feel a thing!" It really surprised me that I could be that instantly comfortable on a bed without a pillow, even! We did test a few other mattresses by other brands that have a tempur material built in, but nothing came close to comparing to that snuggly, sinking feeling of the Tempur-Pedic.

We got up, and I told the salesman that I wanted to order that set. He asked me when I wanted it delivered, and I told him "Yesterday?" As it turned out, the first available day was four days away and I happily agreed. (I know I managed to get a full size refrigerator in my van for transport, but I wasn't about to try a king size mattress set.) As we were discussing the delivery options, I noticed that hanging off of the side of the bed was a little pocket holding a remote control. I asked what it was. The salesman dryly answered, "It has an optional, adjustable foundation. Lay back down and press some buttons."

That was the wrong thing to tell me.

I laid back down and pressed a button. My feet started to go up. Then I hit another button and the whole bed vibrated. Another button and my head raised up. After that, I was a goner. By the time I selected head down, feet up and Swedish rolling massage, I was oooohing and aaaahing like something out of a naughty movie! My mom was laughing hysterically and the salesman looked as if he realized he played the wrong hand in "Rock-Paper-Scissors."

Oh my. If that optional foundation wasn't ANOTHER $1500 on top of the already-expensive mattress set, I would've sprinted for it in a heartbeat!! That was the cat's meow! Of course, it didn't escape me that my husband ALREADY is a pain in the rear to oust from the bed or sofa, and if I added Swedish Rolling Massage to the bed, I could very well move in a house full of monkeys swinging from branches or jump on our daughter's trampoline stark naked and he wouldn't notice a thing.

Finally I gave up the remote control and headed over to stand in line at the cashier area. That was another show all together. Two salesmen were ahead of us holding spots, their customers were milling around the Clearance Center. One salesman said to the other, "Wow, that tie of yours sure is festive." (The tie had Chinese writing all over it.)

"Thanks. It's real Chinese." he beamed.

"Do you know what it says?" I asked, not sure if I really wanted to know.

"I don't think it's appropriate." he answered.

I laughed. "Oh, I thought it was something like 'I love my mother,'"

"No. I really don't know what it says but on a man's tie, probably not 'I love my mother'!" he laughed.

Somehow he got from the tie topic to his divorce case. I'm really clueless about how that happened, but this complete stranger, who I'm certain must've made an appearance on the Jerry Springer show, told us that he's paying on his lawyer's fees of $17,000. And that his lawyer should've given him a discount since he'd already hired him to do the prenup. Prenup? Ok, and he's working for commission in a small town furniture store, sporting a tie Made in China. The money MUST have been on his ex-wife's side. Then he said, "Yup. That was the worst six months of my life. At least I can say I tried marriage. Now I can get on with my life. Oh, and I love my kid. At least she SAID he's mine."

Wow. All this entertainment just for a new mattress set!

After awhile, Mom and I noticed two overstuffed matching green chairs not too far away from where were standing in the Clearance Center. Mom sat in one, and I plopped down in the other. I looked at her and asked, "Do these recline?" and on cue, we both thrust ourselves backwards, trying to make the chairs recline.

Nothing happened. We burst out laughing. And tried it again. And again. As if body thrusting six times will really make the chairs decide to recline. Oh it was hilarious. We were not only being eyed by the salespeople, but by the other shoppers testing out chairs. Finally our salesman came over and pressed a button on the side of our chairs (which we hadn't noticed because the darn things were so close to eachother) to make them recline! They were actually really comfortable. Ugly, but comfortable. I tried to talk the guy into taking half for them but he couldn't budge on the price. (Should've thrown them in in exchange for the show he got with me on the mattress with the remote control--but I didn't want to suggest that in front of other shoppers.) My turn finally came up in line and I cashed out and left. Not sure why the salesman didn't offer to walk us to the door like the others were doing with their customers..but I think he may have been tipping a bottle by then in the break room, trying to force two crazy women out of his head.

Flash forward to Wednesday. What would have been an easy delivery through the front door and straight up the stairs to our room wasn't possible at all. We had had a blizzard and the entire front steps and porch area of our house was blocked off by hardened, drifted snow. The king size mattress set would have to come through the back slider door and through the house and then up the stairs into the bedroom. I met the delivery guys at the door and the one said, "Uh, did you tell your salesperson that you have a second story?"

"No, he didn't ask. Why?" I got worried.

"Well, it's freezing outside, and foam mattresses freeze like popsicles. Your set has been on the truck since last night and all day today in below freezing temps. It's hard as a rock. If we try to bend it at all, it will crack," he answered.

"OH NOOOOO," I stammered. "What can we do now?" They wanted to see the stairwell, which is wide open, so they figured they wouldn't have to bend it at all. But how would we sleep on a frozen mattress??

They carried out our old set and carried in the new. When they brought the new mattress in, they told me it wasn't as frozen as they thought, there was still some give in it, but that it would be several hours before it was soft again. After they left, I lovingly made up the bed with the special Tempur-Pedic, mindblowingly expensive mattress pad/protector and a clean set of sheets. It was REALLY cold to the touch. I didn't want to even attempt to lay on it, for fear of cracking it.

A couple hours later, Husband awoke from a couch nap and ran upstairs to try the new bed. Remember how he entrusted me with choosing a new mattress? Well, he jumped under the covers and sort of winced. "I'm not feeling that famous sinking in thing," he grumbled. I told him the story about the frozen foam and promised him the mattress I chose was divinely comfy. We just had to give it some time.

So we rolled around the bed, two kids jumped off and on the bed, and a dog jumped at the bed for attention. We spent an hour trying to warm up the bed. Jillian was busily playing with her new hair stuff at the end of the bed and announced, "Yup, I feel it getting smooshy."

I didn't feel it getting smooshy. I was thanking God I had clothes on, because laying in this giant ice cream sandwich of a bed in anything less than jeans and a sweater would've put me in a coma.

I finally gave up and got out of the bed to get warm. Husband fell asleep. I figured at least his side of the bed would be thawed by the time I went to bed, and as big as a king size is, I could borrow some of his real estate and he'd still have room to snooze.

I was wrong.

The bed still felt cold and hard. It had SOME give to it, but NOTHING like in the store. Somehow after much shifting around, I managed to fall asleep, but for only short amounts of time. I wasn't so much cold as uncomfortable. It felt very firm. And my head felt like it was lower than my body, which is odd, because it was the same pillow I've been happily sleeping on for years. Off and on during the night, I was having Tempur-Pedic commercial flashbacks. The newest one features half a dozen so-called owners chanting "Ask me how I like my Tempur-Pedic" over and over. By 4:30am, I was wondering why they didn't bother posting their phone numbers on TV so I could actually call them and tell them how I like MY Tempur-Pedic.

Surely there is a reason why our new mattress isn't heavenly. Either it has to do with it having been SO cold, or they accidentally delivered a firm version instead of the one I picked out, or it has to just be broken in a little. I guess that latter makes sense, -- the one in the store has been rolled on a at least a thousand times (not to mention the countless people who lost their minds using the remote control on that sucker like I did!) We actually have 30-45 days to make sure we really like it, or we can exchange it for something different. I'm hoping we really like it. I LOVED the one in the store. LOVED it to near death. I think I should just invite the entire family over to spend Christmas on our bed, maybe that would break it in faster.

Too bad we don't have Sidney anymore to help us break in the frozen Tempur-Pedic. He's gone to the Great Mattress in the Sky. (Betcha it's softer and warmer than in OUR bed...)