Buying a Bed

Hi,
Once upon a time there was a princess named 'Marilyn'. She hated the bed she had to sleep on. It was lumpy, bumpy and had a cavern in the center that she got sucked into every night. The back pain caused by this bed was unbearable so she convinced her Prince Charming, better known as 'Marshall', to buy her a new bed. He was very gracious about the need for a new bed, but since he slept in the same place as Marilyn did, they felt he should have a say in what the bed should be like also. So off they went on a snowy Saturday morning to try out beds.

Here is where the fairy tale turns into in the horror story.

Bed shopping is worse than trying to buy a used car. No two stores carry the same brands, or if they are the same, they have totally different names so you can't compare apples and oranges. Pricing is all over the map no matter what you look at. Regular coil spring, air mattresses, memory foam, combinations of the lot, straw on the floor.... what ever it is, it's so confusing your head spins. Then there are the sales people. They failed at door-to-door encyclopedia promotions so they ended up working at "Sleepy's" (the same kind of place "as Sleep Country Canada" for my Canadian subscribers). There is just total 'bed hell' out there. Everyone I asked about what bed they liked had the same look on their face of "don't go there!". No one seems to like their bed, or like where they bought it, or ever want to go through the shopping experience again.

We spent 5 hours trekking back and forth between bed stores and we must have lay down on 20 different beds. The easiest thing was to eliminate what we really hated from the pile, then work our way down to the tolerable beds. At last we narrowed the choice down to two different styles. One with layers of memory foam and a coil base, designed by "Dr. Maas" (who ever he is?). The latest trend is to have some medical guru put his name on a bed to make you feel like a doctor subscribed the mattress for you.... here take this pill, sleep on this bed and call me in the morning. The other choice was a memory foam, not a Tempur-pedic, we didn't like that one, but a "Comforpedic", sort of the same but with faster foam recovery so you don't have to wait for the foam to re-conform when you change position.

The thing I liked best about the foam style mattresses is that you don't feel your sleeping partner move at all. It also will accommodate the weight differences that cause me to roll into the middle of a regular bed. My 100lbs. can't compete with Marshall's 185lbs. There, the truth is out. I only weigh 100lbs! Who knew that a bed should be such a big part of a marriage arrangement. Marshall was patient enough to put up with all this and went along with the bed I liked best. Back to this shopping spree....

Marshall played one shop against the other to get the best price and free delivery. Remember, this is just like buying a used car so negotiating is a key factor.... and we play hard ball. The bed arrives today and I'll let you know how the princess sleeps tonight. I just pray Prince Charming is still sleeping with me after all this.

xox
m