From The Mud Puddle

Our bedroom mattress was shot.

Quite literally, it looked as if it had been shot.

It had holes throughout it from years and years of use. We had tried to add to it's life by buying eggshell foam, adding old comforters and hoping one of those wires did not decide in the middle of the night to revolt and stab us in the back.

We really should have bought one years ago, but did not. It really didn't get that bad for sleeping until the past year or so.

In the 21 + years of our married life, we've never had to buy a new mattress. My parents had a spare with screw-in-legs for us to use that first year or so. My in laws had another older bedroom set (with another mattress) a year or so into our marriage. Later, one of my mother's friends was selling an old bed of hers with a mattress in pretty good shape for cheap, so we ended up with that one from my mother too.

I was quite surprised to find out that the "experts" (I'm guessing these are the same folks that oversee the mattress police that make sure that you keep those do not remove tags on your bed at all times) say that you should buy a new mattress every 7 years. Well given how long we have been married, we should now be on our 4th mattress....which we are-even if when we received the other mattresses they were way past their original 7 years.

So with our big old gas guzzler conversion van, my husband and I took off across town to Sams Club yesterday morning. Never mind he had not told me (to my memory) that his air conditioner needed freon. Never mind that we had to ride with the windows down. Never mind that our air quality here in the Triad, was about as bad as it could get due to a wild fire near the coast.

It was hot, it was sticky, I could not breath without going into a coughing fit. Before making the whole trip home again, we stopped off at Burger King to get something to eat and to cool off and breath good air. Getting back into the van got it all started once more.

We got the mattress inside and then all went our separate ways. My husband needed to scoot to work, dropping my son off at my mother's house along the way. I had my daughter to pick up from work. After a long afternoon of more errands (while popping halls cough drops all day), I finally found my way home to begin washing the new bedding I treated us to to go along with our new bed.

My son helped me get the old mattress down the hall and to get the new mattress to the bedroom. I climbed up on top of it-climbing is not something you did in the other mattress. The old mattress would kind of just grab you and suck you in. Climbing on the new mattress, it felt like we were climbing into a loft. I kind of think we need stairs for it. I know I might in the least need a guard rail like we put on our kid's beds when they were little. One wrong move and I will fall three or four feet to the ground now. It's a long way down.

There is no way Bayley, our dog, can make it up here now. I think he might have been offended just a bit when the kids and I all were sitting up here and I said, "We're on a boat Bayley and you're the shark". When Jay arrived home, Bayley had some choice words about the whole thing to Jay. (He barked, would look at me and the bed and then bark at Jay.) I really think he was telling Jay off, or tattling on me for calling him a shark. Does he not respect the hand that feeds him or what?

At 2 am our comforter was still drying, and somewhere in there my husband and I both were just laying here in our new mattress about to fall asleep. We decided to just grab another blanket to throw on us and go on to sleep. It had been a long hot day.

I woke up cold at 8 am. I'm not complaining as I would always rather be cold than hot, but I did miss the warmth of snuggling under our comforter this morning.

I started the dryer again and the comforter is all dry and on our bed. I look forward to making the bed up as the comforter will actually fit now (as will my alternative bedspread) without parts of it hanging off the bed. I look forward to many good night sleeps in this bed. It should happen too. When I bought new sheets I bought them in "chocolate". Yes, sheets are no longer just plain brown, or dark brown..My sheets are now "chocolate". Chocolate sheets should be good for some sweet dreams, don't you think?

posted by Muddy at 9:01 AM