There are some purchases that make a person feel adult: like one’s first car or first home. For me, it was a new bed. (Ironically, I realized I also purchased a Blanky Boo Boo this week. We call that a “juxtaposition,” people.)
I’ve been sleeping on the same mattress for 12 years. Which would be impressive even if it were a pimped out Posturepedic I received as a hand-me-down from my parents. Unfortunately, this bed’s pedigree is even more dubious… I bought it for $50 off a girl whose room in a group house I took over in DC.
Nothing says high-class like a no-name mattress bought in cash off a stranger.
He looked kind of like this guy...
Um. The thing is, I hadn’t consciously realized I had a bad bed. It wasn’t anything I thought about until Alan started complaining about it. And that’s when it occurred to me that I actually look forward to work travel because the hotel bed provides a great night’s sleep.
Seriously? Who looks forward to a hotel bed?
So I bit the bullet and went to Macy’s Thursday during lunch because they were having a ridiculous 50% off sale on their mattresses. And I learned: shopping for a bed is kind of weird.
For starters, the salesman looked like something you would find under “salesman” in the dictionary. He was in his late 50s, had a comb-over, slightly resembled a beaver and wouldn’t leave me alone. It’s one thing to hear a sales pitch. It’s another thing to be lying down with an older lecherous man hovering over you delivering a sales pitch. Just a little awkward.
He rambled on and on about coil counts and other crap I didn’t actually care about while I rolled around on each bed. To save space, each bed has a “firm” side and a “plush” side so you can test both options without having to lie on two different beds. It was like a taste test that didn’t require a new cup.
In the middle of my rolling around, a young couple came in and approached the sales guy with some questions, which provided a welcome break for me to test the beds in silence. Except I couldn’t stop from eavesdropping on the couple, who were slow to understand the whole “plush/firm” concept of the test beds.
I heard the salesman explain it to them once… twice… and then the wife said, “Cool! So we can buy a bed that is plush on one side for me and firm on his side for him?” And the salesman took a third crack at it. “No, see, these are SAMPLES…” I could hear his blood pressure rising with every word of explanation.
“But it has memory foam, right? So the bed will remember how I like to sleep,” the woman told her husband.
Just listening to her non-stop prattle was making me tired. So tired that I was tempted to close my eyes and road test one of the beds. Instead, I decided to throw the salesman a bone. “Sir?” I waved. “When you have a moment…”
A few minutes later, we were sitting at his computer, ringing up the deal. I could’ve seasoned popcorn with the perspiration dripping off his palms as he keyed in my address for delivery.
Had he NOT struggled to spell my street name – “New Hampshire? That’s H-A-M-S-H-E-R ?” – I would’ve tried to have a bit of fun with him.
I thought it would be excellent, just as he was getting ready to run my card, to say, “Now, just so we’re clear, I’d like the ‘plush’ on the left side and the ‘firm’ on the right, cool?”
pithypants 
I thought from the title this would be about getting to sleep in a double bed in Milan…being moved up finally from the twin mattress status.