Ode to a Mattress (Topper)
Feb. 5th, 2007 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grrgoylI've been strangely quiet lately. This is because A) I was mourning the disappearance of my friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ohdeve from LJ Land, and B) I've had a bit of (yet another) saga brewing.
I blame it all on third shift at the kennels. I was fairly content with my situation before that. Then about 3 weekends ago I woke on the loveseat in the breakroom at the hospital in the middle of an infomercial (the airwaves are crawling with them at that time of the morning) for the Tempur-Pedic™ Memory Foam mattress. I watched in a state of semi-consciousness until they mentioned dust mites. Dust mites are wee, microscopic organisms that infest your mattress and, over 10 years' time, can double the weight of the average boxspring. Ummmm, EW. MAJOR EW. I was 100% happier before learning that.
The Tempur-Pedic™ claimed to have a "viscoelastic seal" to protect against dust mites. It made a lot of other claims, but this was the one that caught my attention. That and the fact that the ancient, brokedown loveseat at the hospital suddenly seemed to be snapping my spine in half.
The next day I did my research on the internet. One thing the infomercial failed to mention was the price: starting at around $1000. Yeeks. It hardly seemed fair that only the very wealthy were entitled to a good night's sleep, so I did more research. I got my heart set on a Tempur-Pedic™ knock-off for less than half the price when Tery had to stomp on my shopping high and point out the craziness of buying a bed over the internet that I didn't even know if I would like with no kind of return policy or money back guarantee.
She was right of course, so a few days later I found myself in the parking lot of the Denver Mattress across the street from our house. "Go in and tell them you're just looking," my sister advised over the phone. "Then the salespeople will just leave you alone. Maybe there will be other customers they can bother instead." Well, it turns out there's kind of a lull in the mattress shopping crowds at midday on a Monday. I stepped in and instantly recognized I had made a major tactical error. No less than 4 salespeople clustered around the register area chatting, stopping to look up and sniff the air like prairie dogs at my entrance. One of them broke off to help me and I was trapped. I just didn't want to waste time wandering around the store with all of them watching me.
He was helpful, guiding me through the range of memory foam they had, then steering me towards a boxspring with individually wrapped coils. It goes without saying that the choices got pricier and pricier the longer we talked. He said he could tell me what firmness I needed by conducting a test involving me lying on my side and resisting him pushing against my outstretched arm. I zoned out a bit when he explained what I was supposed to do so I felt kind of foolish (above and beyond carrying on a conversation with a stranger while lying down, though I'm sure he's used to it). Bless his soul, he was doing his damnedest to sell me a mattress, but I escaped.
It did prove one thing to me: the lowest priced option on that route was way more than I was hoping to spend, so I tried to abandon the idea. However I just couldn't shake the thought that my 8-year-old bed, in addition to probably being full of critters, wasn't cutting the mustard anymore in the comfort department. Every morning I wake up stiff and feeling like I'd only slept about 3 hours. And sleeping two nights out of the week on either a sleeping bag on the floor of the hospital or in the aforementioned torture device wasn't making any chiropractic in-roads for me either.
So I did what I always do -- turned to eBay for acheaper more affordable alternative. It was here that I learned about mattress toppers, slices of memory foam that could be laid right on top of your existing mattress. Well now. They came in 2, 3 and 4 inches, but I couldn't imagine anything less than the maximum accommodating my ass. To my delight, most eBay sellers also offered a money back guarantee. Perfect! I placed my order Monday with the Sleepy Mountain Mattress Company and sat back to await the completion of my life (again).
They shipped it DHL, which includes a tracking number. Tracking numbers are a double-edged sword, I've learned. Whereas I find it thrilling to watch my purchase inch across the country towards me, it can just as easily lend itself to frustration and hostility when my purchase starts to stray. For instance, my mattress started in Topeka, KS (which isn't more than a day and a half away from Denver for a really dedicated truck driver, which I remember from our initial cross-country move) and then inexplicably went to Columbia, Missouri. West, DHL. Colorado is WEST of Kansas.
Whatever. I was excited Friday morning to see it had arrived in Englewood, CO, a 20-minute drive from us if you hit the lights right. I spent all day in quite a tizzy, bounding to the top of the stairs every time I heard the merest suggestion of footsteps on the stairs (which 9 times out of 10 turned out to be Frances Feathertail tossing her mouse toy against the wall). By 4 pm I was being slowly driven mad with the constant refreshing of the tracking page with no new information, so had closed it. Imagine my reaction then at 5 pm when I went back and saw that my mattress had driven around in the back of a truck for 8 hours, only to be "tendered" to the post office in Englewood. What?!!!!
Could you not find me, DHL? Did I not rate as high as your business customers? What does "DHL" stand for, anyway? "Delivered by Hopeless Losers"??? Oh, the words "enraged," "livid", "frothing at the mouth," all staggering understatements. Tery was almost afraid to come home, despite my promise to not take it out on her.
It happily came on Saturday via the post office. It turns out DHL can't be bothered with delivering large packages to residential addresses, so they pawn them off on their unfortunate government-employed brethren. Seems like kind of a shitty deal for the postal workers. No wonder they're so unstable. Either way, DHL will NOT be getting a resounding endorsement from me now or ever.
But the bed.....the bed! I of course tried it out immediately. Like lying on a cloud. The temperature-sensitive foam sinks at the points of maximum contact, i.e. pressure points, e.g. most definitely my ass. It molds to the shape of my body, spooning against me, cupping me if you will. It's heaven.
Frances Fluffytoes, as she has done with everything else since the minute she entered the front door, made herself right at home immediately:
Alsatia, however, was not so enchanted. She who spends 80% of her life in my bed suddenly decided the 3 square inches at the edge of the sofa with Tery was preferable:
"The day has taken quite an ugly turn," were Tery's exact words.
She doesn't usually like things this cosy. This development the day before, for example, didn't please her in the slightest:
Unlike the ferrets, whose vocabulary doesn't include the term "personal space":
The proof is in the pudding (or the sheets):
I used to say all the time that I loved my bed. Now I can say my bed loves me.
ohdeve from LJ Land, and B) I've had a bit of (yet another) saga brewing. I blame it all on third shift at the kennels. I was fairly content with my situation before that. Then about 3 weekends ago I woke on the loveseat in the breakroom at the hospital in the middle of an infomercial (the airwaves are crawling with them at that time of the morning) for the Tempur-Pedic™ Memory Foam mattress. I watched in a state of semi-consciousness until they mentioned dust mites. Dust mites are wee, microscopic organisms that infest your mattress and, over 10 years' time, can double the weight of the average boxspring. Ummmm, EW. MAJOR EW. I was 100% happier before learning that.
The Tempur-Pedic™ claimed to have a "viscoelastic seal" to protect against dust mites. It made a lot of other claims, but this was the one that caught my attention. That and the fact that the ancient, brokedown loveseat at the hospital suddenly seemed to be snapping my spine in half.
The next day I did my research on the internet. One thing the infomercial failed to mention was the price: starting at around $1000. Yeeks. It hardly seemed fair that only the very wealthy were entitled to a good night's sleep, so I did more research. I got my heart set on a Tempur-Pedic™ knock-off for less than half the price when Tery had to stomp on my shopping high and point out the craziness of buying a bed over the internet that I didn't even know if I would like with no kind of return policy or money back guarantee.
She was right of course, so a few days later I found myself in the parking lot of the Denver Mattress across the street from our house. "Go in and tell them you're just looking," my sister advised over the phone. "Then the salespeople will just leave you alone. Maybe there will be other customers they can bother instead." Well, it turns out there's kind of a lull in the mattress shopping crowds at midday on a Monday. I stepped in and instantly recognized I had made a major tactical error. No less than 4 salespeople clustered around the register area chatting, stopping to look up and sniff the air like prairie dogs at my entrance. One of them broke off to help me and I was trapped. I just didn't want to waste time wandering around the store with all of them watching me.
He was helpful, guiding me through the range of memory foam they had, then steering me towards a boxspring with individually wrapped coils. It goes without saying that the choices got pricier and pricier the longer we talked. He said he could tell me what firmness I needed by conducting a test involving me lying on my side and resisting him pushing against my outstretched arm. I zoned out a bit when he explained what I was supposed to do so I felt kind of foolish (above and beyond carrying on a conversation with a stranger while lying down, though I'm sure he's used to it). Bless his soul, he was doing his damnedest to sell me a mattress, but I escaped.
It did prove one thing to me: the lowest priced option on that route was way more than I was hoping to spend, so I tried to abandon the idea. However I just couldn't shake the thought that my 8-year-old bed, in addition to probably being full of critters, wasn't cutting the mustard anymore in the comfort department. Every morning I wake up stiff and feeling like I'd only slept about 3 hours. And sleeping two nights out of the week on either a sleeping bag on the floor of the hospital or in the aforementioned torture device wasn't making any chiropractic in-roads for me either.
So I did what I always do -- turned to eBay for a
They shipped it DHL, which includes a tracking number. Tracking numbers are a double-edged sword, I've learned. Whereas I find it thrilling to watch my purchase inch across the country towards me, it can just as easily lend itself to frustration and hostility when my purchase starts to stray. For instance, my mattress started in Topeka, KS (which isn't more than a day and a half away from Denver for a really dedicated truck driver, which I remember from our initial cross-country move) and then inexplicably went to Columbia, Missouri. West, DHL. Colorado is WEST of Kansas.
Whatever. I was excited Friday morning to see it had arrived in Englewood, CO, a 20-minute drive from us if you hit the lights right. I spent all day in quite a tizzy, bounding to the top of the stairs every time I heard the merest suggestion of footsteps on the stairs (which 9 times out of 10 turned out to be Frances Feathertail tossing her mouse toy against the wall). By 4 pm I was being slowly driven mad with the constant refreshing of the tracking page with no new information, so had closed it. Imagine my reaction then at 5 pm when I went back and saw that my mattress had driven around in the back of a truck for 8 hours, only to be "tendered" to the post office in Englewood. What?!!!!
Could you not find me, DHL? Did I not rate as high as your business customers? What does "DHL" stand for, anyway? "Delivered by Hopeless Losers"??? Oh, the words "enraged," "livid", "frothing at the mouth," all staggering understatements. Tery was almost afraid to come home, despite my promise to not take it out on her.
It happily came on Saturday via the post office. It turns out DHL can't be bothered with delivering large packages to residential addresses, so they pawn them off on their unfortunate government-employed brethren. Seems like kind of a shitty deal for the postal workers. No wonder they're so unstable. Either way, DHL will NOT be getting a resounding endorsement from me now or ever.
But the bed.....the bed! I of course tried it out immediately. Like lying on a cloud. The temperature-sensitive foam sinks at the points of maximum contact, i.e. pressure points, e.g. most definitely my ass. It molds to the shape of my body, spooning against me, cupping me if you will. It's heaven.
Frances Fluffytoes, as she has done with everything else since the minute she entered the front door, made herself right at home immediately:
Alsatia, however, was not so enchanted. She who spends 80% of her life in my bed suddenly decided the 3 square inches at the edge of the sofa with Tery was preferable:
"The day has taken quite an ugly turn," were Tery's exact words.
She doesn't usually like things this cosy. This development the day before, for example, didn't please her in the slightest:
Unlike the ferrets, whose vocabulary doesn't include the term "personal space":
The proof is in the pudding (or the sheets):
I used to say all the time that I loved my bed. Now I can say my bed loves me.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 07:39 am (UTC)Sweet dreams!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 04:52 pm (UTC)Last night was my first full night's sleep on it. It was fantastic. The only tiny complaint is that switching positions is a little tricky in the dips that form around your body, but not impossible and I found myself sleeping deeper so didn't switch positions as much as I used to.
So far I highly recommend it! Let me know if you have any other questions. : )
no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 12:55 pm (UTC)And DHL over HERE, it's so bad. I only say that because my stepdad used to work for them and then became a manager. And they always went to the residential homes too.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 04:57 pm (UTC)I read the website carefully. Apparently they only deliver less than 70 lbs to residences. Something kind of dodgy there, the tracking information initially listed it at 31 pounds, but then as soon as it got picked up it was changed to exactly 70 lbs -- which is a crock, there's no way a foam mattress weighs close to that. Stupid DHL. Stupid Dutch.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 02:26 am (UTC)Now add me to your friends list, I'm lonely.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 03:07 am (UTC)And booyah on the new kidney!! I really hope it works out for you. Maybe we'll see a more cheerful side of ohdeve.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 07:19 am (UTC)I declare today talk-about-commercials-that-weren't-on-during-the-Super-Bowl day.
Date: 2007-02-05 11:37 pm (UTC)Re: I declare today talk-about-commercials-that-weren't-on-during-the-Super-Bowl day.
Date: 2007-02-06 12:03 am (UTC)Re: I declare today talk-about-commercials-that-weren't-on-during-the-Super-Bowl day.
Date: 2007-02-06 07:57 pm (UTC)Re: I declare today talk-about-commercials-that-weren't-on-during-the-Super-Bowl day.
Date: 2007-02-06 08:13 pm (UTC)