The Princess and the Pea has NOTHING on Me...

Do you ever find yourself wandering through life wondering "Why me?" or "How did I end up HERE in my life?" or "Why can't I just flipping win the lottery already and get it over with?" Well, I do. But over and above those musings, I wonder why in the world I of all people, have had such a weird mattress experience in my life. I mean, seriously. I'm just a normal consumer, not even one that would THREATEN to rip the "Do Not Remove" tag off of my mattress, for Pete's sake. Why can't I just buy a darn mattress and move on with life??

I was pondering this this morning, and I scrolled through my old blogs and landed on a previous mattress experience from a couple years ago, I thought I'd repost it here to give you some background before I get into the nitty gritty of the more recent event....

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Nuttin' Like a Frozen Mattress (previously posted 12/2010)

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, after all.) 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 snugly, 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 each other) 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...)
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I reread that a little while ago and just got chills. That whole Tempur-Pedic mess still irritates me. But you should know---since the divorce I've moved into a different house, one in which the master bedroom is not big enough to sport a giant king-size bed. Guess who has the still-not-smooshy-soft-like-the-store Tempur Pedic AND the $2400 bill? EXHusband and Girlfriend. Yes, she has my ex, my old house, AND my old mattress. (Don't read too much into that. No hard feelings here...just a lot of eye-rolling when I think about it. Wait for the book, I'm tellin' ya.)

And so, when I moved, I needed a bed. So temporarily, I used one of the kids' old full size mattresses. Ouch. I already was having back problems after pulling some muscle in my back during this dang house renovation, and now I was sleeping on full size cement. Even though I had promised myself to keep my spending to a minimum, it wasn't many moons before I realized I had no choice if I ever wanted to sleep again. I NEEDED a new mattress.

So, off to the store we went, my crazy mom and I. We actually laughed about the last visit to the (same) store, and couldn't believe we were ALREADY back to buy yet ANOTHER mattress after that last expensive fiasco. Well, this time, I was suffering from sciatica, so jumping on and off beds wasn't as easy as before. We started testing mattresses ...and testing and testing. No salesman. How ironic is THAT. I actually NEEDED a salesman to be able to buy a mattress and no one came to help us!

Funny, it's just now dawning on me why. I bet that last bloke who had us the last time put our mugs on posters in the break room that read "Keep Away from These Customers - They are Loons" or something. Heck, had I had that realization while still in the store, I bet you money I would've started jumping on a mattress just for the fun of it to see if THAT got any attention! (See, I KNOW you all think I'm this prim and proper, straight-laced, very respectable citizen, but the truth is, I have the same weird urges as everyone else. Like, when I drive past a row of those super-strong Rubbermaid mailboxes, I want so badly to drive my van into them and try to knock them over....I did NOT just admit that. Oh someone please call my therapist. On second thought, DON'T. )

Anywhooo, it was at least a half hour before a guy came over to help us pick a mattress. He was very nice. (Probably on a lot of Prozac.) He talked me into taking the mattress test. ?? You lay on a mattress at the front of the department that has computer sensors in it, and you answer a series of questions as the mattress gets firm and soft and such, and then the computer spits out a recommendation for you.

Funny thing is, the computer wants you to enter in all your life information before you lay down. Like, your sex, your weight (ha), if you are a side sleeper, etc, if you have pain issues, your age. Then, it wants you to enter all this info about your sleep partner. Wow. That placed me in an odd place. Do I put "None" and leave Boyfriend out of the mattress experience all together? Or if I do add "Boyfriend" and wing it, and try to guess all this info about him (after all, it had only been a couple of months, I hate to admit, there were some things I hadn't learned about him yet, as in, "If you sleep in a position other than your preferred position, do you experience any discomfort or irritability?" (Side note: There is something remotely entertaining to a new girlfriend who is a) A Complete Sap and b)Feels like a giddy schoolgirl when she's fallen head over heels for her boyfriend ... when she gets to answer life questions about her guy. Especially in front of her mother, who, is just as giddy over her daughter being in love with the guy.) And come to think of it, is that EVER a discussion with a life mate, anyway? Do couples sit down over coffee one morning and have the conversation, "Um, Honey, let's just say you were made to sleep in a position other than the one you normally prefer to sleep in, do you think you'd be irritable? Oh, by the way, the trash needs to go out and Junior has Strep Throat."

So, back to the story. I went through the mattress test but I know the salesman probably questioned whether it was even worth it. I couldn't stop giggling. I mean, really. I am 30-something years old and I have had seven houses. I've actually traveled to and slept in seven foreign countries and 27 states in our union, on top of that. Does anyone really believe that I would choose a mattress based on what a computer tells me I need, (soft, medium, firm, extra firm) ?? Truthfully, I love a smooshy mattress. Whether it's good for my back or not, I have to admit, on a firm mattress, I find it VERY difficult to get comfortable and fall asleep and I usually wake up with more aches and pains in my joints than I prefer to. I know what I like to feel when I drag my over-tired, house-renovating, mommy-has-left-the-building body to bed at night. I'll give you a clue: It's not an ice cold hard Tempur Pedic and it's not a firm mattress that you can bounce coins off of, either. I want to pull back my old cozy quilts and fall into butter soft sheets that lovingly cover a smooshy, body-hugging, reminiscent of John Denver's "Grandma's Feather Bed" song, kind of bed. And let me tell you, that kind of mattress wasn't on the computer's recommendation list. In fact, I questioned whether or not the store even HAD such a thing.

Wouldn't you know it, the computer said I should shop for a Medium to Firm mattress. Um, no thanks. I went straight to the extra thick, pillow top mattress section. I narrowed it down to two I really loved the feel of. But they weren't in my preferred price range. Figures. My "interest free, low monthly payments till the year 2057" credit account was being taken up by the now ex husband's ice cold Tempur Pedic purchase. It didn't leave me with much to work with. And my cash in hand had way more places to go, like to the "my house needs electric so we don't have to live by candlelight" fund. Hmmm. Where's the compromise here? THE CLEARANCE CENTER!

So off we jaunted. Mom and I started testing clearance center mattresses, most of which were floor models. Funny thing: Many floor models now have a split firmness quality for testing purposes, one half is soft for example, and the other half is firm. So now you have to figure out what side of the bed you normally sleep on before you can buy a floor model mattress because if you don't, you'll either have to rearrange your room or readjust the side of bed you sleep on, and if you do share a bed, you might end up playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who gets which side of the bed, and heck with that, THAT is a position that might make me irritable. I opted to skip over those kinds of mattresses.

I thought I had narrowed it down to one I could live with, though it wasn't AS nice as the two I just walked away from in the "full price" section of the store. Then my mom noticed a stack of mattresses, like, four high with box springs. The top one was the same brand and model as one I had loved in the full price section. Do you think we could find our salesman to get it down so I could test it? Of course not. Well, I wasn't about to NOT test it. I needed to make an educated decision before buying a mattress. I did what any girl would do. I kicked off my shoes and climbed to the top of the stack and layed down.

Wow, you could see a LOT of the store from up there!

It was actually pretty comfy. Right before I drifted off to sleep, (kidding), the salesman came over and suggested that I come down from there, and let him get someone to bring the mattress and box springs down to the floor level so I could test it out. Ok, I could do that. But after the mattress and box springs were on the floor level, they were, well, on the FLOOR. When I layed there, I had to look up at the salesman and my mother. That felt just plain weird. And really, I wasn't as happy as I was on the top of the stack. The mattress was OK... but not perfect. On the other hand, it was several hundred dollars less than other two in the full price section. So after much hemming and hawing, I did sprint for the clearance center one. It was an extra thick pillow top with a "low profile" foundation/box spring. And of course, delivery was extra. So I talked my dad into coming with his pickup, and we took that sucker home.

We removed the old full size from my room, and extended the bed frame to accompany the queen size mattress I just purchased. Guess what I found out? The full size bed frame will happily adjust to become a twin but it's not really supposed to become a queen. Ugh. By this time it was after 9 at night so the chances of me finding a queen size frame out in a store were nix. My dad made it work.

That night, I couldn't wait to climb into my smooshy new bed. I had high hopes for comfort. I got into bed (with awesome new sheets) and shifted around to get comfortable. (Not as easy with sciatic issues, but it was worth a shot.) I wasn't really feeling it. In fact I was certain I could sort of feel the bed springs through the extra thick pillow top.

Why can't I just buy a mattress and have it be comfortable so I could get on with my life??!

I know this is turning into a really long story, but truly, this is an honest picture of how things in my life end up. Never a dull moment, and very rarely a short story.

Over the next couple of weeks, I managed to find a queen size bed frame on Craigslist after I started to feel the mattress actually SAG in the middle from the full size bed frame. Then I went and purchased an actual overstuffed mattress pad for my extra thick pillow top mattress. That seemed to help A LOT. But there were still two issues that prevented me from enjoying and getting a good night's sleep in the bed. One, I am used to a VERY high bed, one in which you have to use steps to get in (which by the way, is king size and though I moved it here to the new house, it would have to be cut down and rebuilt for me to actually use it) and two, my sciatic nerve had gotten worse. I spent several weeks literally sitting up in a chair in the living room trying to sleep while I put ice packs on my hip. That was soooo exhausting. (And the hoops I've had to go through to get the sciatica at bay is a WHOLE different story.)

I ended up buying those lifts to put under the feet of a bed frame to make the bed higher. That helped. I was worried about their strength, but so far (knock on wood) they are ok. It was a little investment of only $7 at Wal-Mart. If your bed sits to low, I highly recommend the purchase. They aren't pretty to look at but they hide easily under a bed skirt. I'm still planning on using a real bed at some point and not just a bed frame, but for now, they work.

And, I can now report, that with the extra smooshy mattress pad, the extra thick pillow top mattress is actually almost the kind of bed I am ready to climb into at night after a long, exhausting day.

Actually, I think I hear it calling me right now....and it's only 9am. Wonder if anyone would notice if I went back to bed....? ***yawn***