Major Purchase

Okay, it's done.  It's on the record books and recorded in Quicken.  We have made our first major purchase of 2011 and it's a biggie.  A new mattress set.

It is NOT a mattress and box springs anymore, because box springs are to mattresses what PONG is to the video gaming industry.  They just don't exist.  If you run across a mattress salesman with a lifetime of experience under his belt, he'll get that kind of dreamy, faraway look in his eye when you mention box springs -- as if the very word hearkens back to a better day (or night, as the case may be).  The newer guys just gloss right over the whole word, like a bump in the road.  You say box spring, he says foundation.  You say box spring, he says foundation.  Next thing you know, you say foundation, he smiles and sells.

And sells, and sells.  Man, can these guys sell.

In doing the least possible amount of research required to get my husband to write that four-digit check, I learned that mattresses differ from manufacturer to manufacturer (and from grade to grade) very little.  If you rule out the Temper-pedic and other "sleep systems" and begin comparing plain old coil-spring mattresses, there's really not too many ways to skin that cat.  The springs are individually wrapped or they're not.  When pressed, most salesmen can't really explain why.  There's a pillow topper or there's not.  After that, it's just a question of preference.

Unfortunately for Bobby and me, we expressed a preference for one another, forsaking all others, in our wedding vows nearly two decades ago.  Since then, our preferences have not often dovetailed.  Somehow we have found a house we love and we managed to name our two children.  Beyond that, not so much.

In early December, Bobby said he thought it would be good if we forewent Christmas gifts this year and planned to buy ourselves a new mattress.  Now, this was difficult for me because I don't forego Christmas gifts lightly.  Christmas is a pretty big deal and I, admittedly, want my share of the gift giddiness.  But I'm a grown-up and the economy is what it is and I do hate our 15-year-old mattress -- thanks to those disgusting radio ads about the weight of the dead skin and dust mites crawling around in our current mattress.

So, we compromised on the Christmas thing (I got him an iron and some ties; he got me somethings, I'm sure.  Admittedly, nothing is springing to mind, but I know there were packages with my name on them.) and we waited until the after-Christmas bonanzas to go mattress shopping.

An old-school traditionalist, Bobby recommended we start at Sears.  Who's going to shoot you straighter than a salesman at Sears, right?  Good enough for his dad's tools and his grandmother's icebox?  Good enough for us!  Besides, he could pick up some undershirts and a basketball-pump-needle in the same trip.  Really.

The old man at Sears told us he'd been selling mattresses for 25 years and I have no reason to doubt that. He had a poly-blend shirt and a snow-white combover.  He may not have left the mattress nook in that particular Sears in 20 years.  He told a fair number of pathetic mattress jokes and then artfully guided us over to the high-end-end of the mattress showroom.

Rather quickly, Bobby and I agreed that we needed a firm mattress with a pillow top.  At least I decided that and he said he could live with it and it doesn't usually get more agree-y than that with us.  We lay down separately, we lay down next to each other.  We tried falling into one side of the bed while the other closed his/her eyes to see how much displacement we experienced.  I threatened to go get a book and a glass of red wine to simulate the old commercial.

Many of these tester beds are made with firm coils on one side and plush coils on the other.  Half joking, we asked if we could get a bed made that way, in an effort to save our marriage.  Combover just chuckled.  He'd heard everything we thought was pithy and witty about mattresses before.  Many times.  Maybe many times that very day.

He gave us the name of the manufacturer we eventually chose, along with the style name, on the back of his card and sent us on our way.  To The Mattress Firm.

Where we learned that, for comparison's sake, that information was basically quite useless.  Each manufacturer manufactures mattresses under different names and varies the coil count from retailer to retailer.  Between Sears and The Mattress Firm, therefore, there are no apples and apples.

Mattress Firm Sales Guy -- younger, more stylish and (to my eyes anyway) even sadder than Lifelong Mattress Man -- insisted he would match any price out there and began to speak disparagingly of other retailers.  I felt like, after waving my way through lots of smoke and many, many mirrors, there really was no difference.  By the time we were lying on the Mattress Firm mattresses, I had completely forgotten how comfortable I was (or wasn't) back at Sears.  Truth be told, I couldn't even really accurately compare from one side of the Mattress Firm to the other.

They also had those one-for-all, all-in-one firm on one side, plush on the other demo mattresses.  They also chuckled good-naturedly at the idea of buying one like that.  Sometime after I quit listening, he mentioned a warranty to Bobby that seemed superior to what Sears offered and the pendulum swung.

Exhausted from lying on so many different yet similar beds -- none of them our own -- we headed home to deal with the information we had been given and the sticker shock that this was going to be a $2,000 purchase.

Then the issue went dormant for a few days.  And nights.

Last night, around 8:15, conversation swung back around to this pending purchase.  Let's go look online, he says.  Let's check outlets in KCK, he says.  Blech, I thought, as I smiled and followed him to the computer.

After Googling around for a few minutes -- and flat-out refusing to consider a used mattress from a warehouse on a service road in Wyandotte County -- we found Mattress City.  Mattress City appeared to have what we were looking for, at approximately half the price.  Can't be, couldn't be, let's give them a call.

So we do, confirm what we think we know about mattresses, and pile in the car for a roadtrip to Mattress City, baby!  Mattress City is nestled between a jujitsu studio and a Kinko's.  It has cinder block walls and sale tags.  Lots of sale tags.  And a sales manager named Glenn who seems even more bored with his life than I felt at the idea of his life.

"Does anyone ever come in here and go to sleep?" Bobby asked.
"Oh, yeah.  A couple of times a month I'll have a guy come in after lunch and sleep for half an hour or so," Glenn reports.
Really.  And I thought the guys who spent their lunch hour smoking cigars at The Outlaw had honesty issues in THEIR marriages. . . .

"Is it weird carrying on a conversation with people who are lying down?" I queried.
"Oh, yeah.  I try to just stand back a little bit," Glenn replied with a shrug.

Nods all around; a few more jumps into and out of bed to surprise the other (like that will ever actually happen in our every day life) and a slightly more serious comment about the glass of wine.  Then our stock comment, "if only we could buy one that's firm on one side and plush on the other."

"Oh, yeah.  We can do that.  But you can't get it delivered until Wednesday," Glenn says.

Free bedframe.  Free delivery and removal of the old mattress.  Locally manufactured.  Five hundred bucks cheaper than Mattress Firm.  All of these little juicy tidbits are being shared with us as Glenn loads up his briefcase and begins checking the alarm system on the store.  He's SO over selling mattresses today.  And something about his demeanor sealed the deal for me.  He recognizes that his career is rather ridiculous and he's okay with that.  Not what he dreamed of when he was a little boy, not even close.  Okay.  It is what it is.  Buy it if you want.  Or don't.  I'm just going to clock out now.  I like it

Okay, Glenn.  We're sold.  You had us at custom-made split firmness.

But I really wouldn't have minded a glass of wine.