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Health & Fitness

Missing Z's

Now, you’d think that choosing and purchasing a bed would be a fairly simple, straightforward proposition.  After spending nearly one-third of one’s life prone and asleep, you’d think that picking out a mattress would be as simple as, say, buying stamps at the post office, or selecting a ripe melon at the Dekalb Farmer’s Market.

Nope.

Seems our society’s collective infatuation with MORE-MORE-MORE has led to a situation in bedding that does nothing but complicate things.  Now we have plush, plush-firm, firm, closed-cell foam, memory foam, coil counts greater than Methuselah’s birthday candles, compact box springs, sleep number, pillow-top, straight top, articulated, power-assisted…and very likely, heated, shaken-not-stirred, internet-enabled, cable-ready, high thread-count, chromed, bejeweled, bedazzled and hybrid powered.  Buying a simple mattress and box spring set in 2012 CE is akin to trying to find a flip-phone at the local AT&T store. 

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As in:  Good Luck.

Obfuscating things further, I am a stomach and side sleeper, which requires a firm mattress; my Bride is a back sleeper, which requires a plush mattress.  Finding a compromise makes things ever more difficult.  We thought we’d found a solution when my Bride and I became enamored with a particular style of bed we had experienced in a hotel room on one of our recent adventures.  It was soft, but not too soft; firm, but not too firm; and it had a pillow top.  It was all Goldilocks and unicorns.  We thought we’d found Our True Bedding Valhalla.  After much Google searching and emailing and blog-reading, we found a reasonable facsimile of the TBV in a local department store.  Purchase made, delivery done, we settled in for a long, restful night of blissful and ever-so-deserved, full-on comatose sleep. 

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Except.

What was so wonderful in the hotel did not translate so well to our humble abode.  I awoke suffering an amazingly sore back, after a night of what My Bride suggested would be a winning tumbling mat routine for the 2016 Olympics.  Her situation had gone critical as well.  The plush pillow top was great for her back, but we have also now learned that a pillow top is a nice way to increase your sleeping temperature by about 300° Centigrade.  She could not rid herself of enough sheets, blankets or clothing.  What we found was that a pillow top mattress will bake you a nice apple pie, if left under the covers overnight.

A new mattress set from a local department store is not an inconsequential purchase, mind you.  We rationalized that we just needed to get used to it; we’d had our old mattress for ten years and we just needed to “grow into” the new one.  But after less than a week, we both started sleeping on the old mattress – now referred to as “Old Reliable” – which we had moved to a guest room.  The new one was not-so-affectionately dubbed “The Monster.”  Luckily, we had secured a 60-day “comfort guarantee” which allowed for a return of the set, should we not find it to our liking.  Which we did, with 49 days to spare.

Enter the new mattress.  Aided by a professional mattress sales person (the first sales person took our order, since it was clear that we “knew what we were looking for.”), we sprawled across several mattresses for a minimum of 10 minutes at a time, grabbed the appropriate kind of pillow for our “sleep style,” and arrived at a consensus decision.  Firm, but not the firmest; but certainly not plush by any means.  Purchase made, delivery done, we settled in for a long, restful night of blissful and ever-so-deserved, full-on comatose sleep.

However.

Yes, I sleep like a pharaoh on this bed; my Bride, however, is not pleased.  Her back aches are getting worse, prompting a bout of sciatica that makes for a grumpy Bride…no matter what time of day it might happen to be.  The odd thing about this mattress is, she sleeps, she feels rested…but she attributes that to the fact that I’m not moving around in a St. Vitus dance on my side of the bed. 

Nonetheless.

We’re still inside our 60-day “comfort guarantee” window.  References to “Son of the Monster” would suggest that we’re about to go back to the drawing board.  We avoided the restocking fee the first time around, but I’m sure this time it’s on us.  At this point in time, we’re into throwing real money at this pursuit.  Something that fits our personal taste, like picking out familiar postage stamps.  Something plush, but not squishy, like a nice, ripe melon.  Something that works for both of us.

Welcome back, Old Reliable.  Off to the guest room, Son of the Monster.

Simple.  Straightforward.

Good night!

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