The Mattress

As brand newlyweds, we slept wrapped up in each other’s arms every night. Before you go getting mushy (or barfing, whichever comes first) please know that it was NOT purely out of love… it was more like absolute necessity. All we had was a twin mattress. Our landlord happened to walk in our studio apartment and see what we were sleeping on. He immediately retrieved the full-sized bed from their family guest room and loaned it to us, much to his wife’s dismay. It turns out her mother was coming into town the next month. We promised to find a bed before then, and we did. For $40 we were able to get a queen-sized mattress, box spring, head board, foot board and bed frame. It was like Christmas! We set it up in our apartment and felt like royalty. And then we laid down. The bed creaked and moaned and felt like… plywood.
We laughed it off because we were just happy to have a bed.
Then I got pregnant and the plywood feeling WASN’T so laughable anymore. As the years wore on, my husband kept swearing on his aching neck and back that HE WOULD buy a mattress! Two pregnancies later, I had mastered the art of the creaking plywoodesque mattress. I didn’t mind it, and truth be told: I sleep like a baby on the floor. But any normal person would hate the mattress like my husband did.
Every year at tax return season he tried to squirrel enough away for his coveted mattress. Every year, something more pressing came up.
This year? He made it happen. And I’m still a little dazed by it all.
It went a little something like:

The mattress he had his eye on was an hour and a half away. He got off work late and we didn’t leave town until 6:30 PM. The store we needed to get to closed at 9 PM. We had to drive 60 mph to keep from wrecking our Jeep Cherokee and flat bed trailer. Man, this is starting to read like a fifth grade story problem.
Anyway, we got to the store 45 minutes before closing time. As we picked out a mattress, I tried to convince my husband to get a queen. He went into the store with one mind-set: get a plush pillow top King sized mattress.
It took me a few minutes to convince him that while a plush pillow top might be nice for ONE night, it wouldn’t be nice for every night. I also explained to him that were we to get the plush pillow top, I’d be a regular at the back cracker doc.
We went for something more firm -something with more support. And as all ladies know: more support is ALWAYS better.
Something else all ladies know? When it comes to size, men are a force to be reckoned with… you will not win any argument.
“King!” He cried.
“But queen,” I reasoned. I pled with him to consider: we already have a queen sized head board. We already have queen sheets… not to mention the $170 we would save.
He told me getting a queen would be a waste of money since we were GOING to get a king eventually anyway.
I told him I didn’t agree. I told him I didn’t want to do it, but that the decision was his. He obviously cared more than I did.
And guess what?

We got that king mattress. I bought the absolute cheapest sheets I could and still had to fork over $36 for them. We got home at 1:30 AM. I was exhausted. My husband was determined.
“I didn’t come all this way to sleep on that old mattress! Let’s get it outta here!”
Oh, by the way, there’s a free mattress on my porch. Tell your friends. Be sure to warn them about how soft it isn’t.

So at 1:30 AM, we made the switch. As it all played out (and my husband’s wedding band somehow made an appearance from behind the head board prompting my husband to say “THERE it is!” and me to say, “When were you going to tell me you lost that?”) my husband started to realize something… the bed was enormous.
He wriggled our free-standing bed frame out farther and farther… each notch not quite far enough. Finally, after pushing it out as far as it would go, he scratched his head.
“I didn’t think it was this big…”
As we hauled the box springs and mattress in, I again thanked Jillian Michaels for working me like a mule. We unwrapped them and laid them down, and then I shot my husband a look that MIGHT have killed him had it not been 3 AM at that point.
“Are you mad?” He sheepishly asked.
“A little,” I sighed, “I mostly love you, but babe. You gotta remember that my input CAN be valid.”
And then we both turned our gaze on our new monstrosity of a mattress… it seems to swallow up the better part of our room, leaving little room for well, anything that needs doing outside of a mattress… like LIVING.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “We can take it back.” I didn’t think it was possible, but my glare got meaner.
After ALL THAT, we are NOT taking the monster back. And come pregnancy, I’ll be a happy camper since I tend to sleep the better part of 9 months away.

Men…