The Bed Blog

Yesterday, the first day of my husband’s vacation, we went bed shopping together.  It was time.

Not only had we been sleeping mostly apart over the course of the past year (enough said about that), when we came back together we discovered that the bed we had was torturously uncomfortable.  It had been good enough when we had the old mattress and a futon combined, but Rob was convinced that the mattress – dating back to the beginning of the marriage — had run its course and would not be accompanying us to New Hampshire.

Fair enough, except for the fact that the futon (all of about three inches thick) alone on a ladder of wooden slats wasn’t something anyone would feel like diving into for a good long rest. The Japanese may have come up with a solid concept – a firm thing that can be covered with bright material and go from bed to couch – but as far as I’m concerned the main virtue of a sleeping place has to be plain old comfort.  “Aaah!” must be the operative emotion here.

So off we went, on another sweltering day, to the bed store.  Thankfully this did not require going to the mall (a place I’ve managed to avoid so far).

We were the only customers there, so the proprietor gave us her full attention.  Not surprisingly, she knew a lot about how couples can best make their way towards finding mutual satisfaction with a new mattress, where they will spend one third of the rest of their lives.  First of all, there’s a whole lot of lying around involved.  Perhaps you’ve done this recently, in which case the feeling of flopping down all over a big showroom is fresh in your mind.  And then you can’t expect to make a good judgment on which one is the one until you give each mattress a little time, and go back and forth between the finalists for a while, too.  Outside the store, you might assume that you’re being most productive when you’re most active.  Here, though, you’ve actually got to relax – do nothing in multiple short segments– or else you won’t be choosing well.  Oh, and let’s not forget that your spouse is doing the same thing, and that it’s entirely possible you won’t have identical tastes.  You’re each assessing firmness/softness factors as well as noticing things like what happens to you when your beloved one over there tosses and turns.

The fact is, the whole process is kind of a microcosm of marriage itself.  You’re each seeking comfort, literally, and also recognizing that your partner’s comfort is just as important as yours.  This last part, let’s face it, does not always come easily in regular daily life.  Oh, sorry dear, you didn’t agree with that decision I already made to further my own interests?  In the bed store, though, you can’t really get away from the need to balance.

I also love the claims that the manufacturers make about their mattresses. On its website, the Serta company has this directive.  “Get the rejuvenating sleep you need every night for more energy and vitality every day with Perfect Day, a premium Serta mattress collection.”  Who knew that the choice of resting places during our unconscious hours actually can determine the whole quality of our wide awake times too?  How often, by the way, have you had a fully “perfect day” in the last few months?  If you’re hard pressed to drum up a few, maybe it’s time for a new mattress.

One famous couple, way back when, had something close to a perfect end of a day when they fell into each other’s arms after years of separation.  It had been so long that Penelope wasn’t even sure that this man, Odysseus, was her husband, until they started talking about their bed.  This was no bed procured from the local store, either, but one whose posts were hewed from an olive tree, and a room built around the tree. Penelope tests Odysseus by asking her servant to move the bed outside the chamber; this sets him off in a big way:  “There is our pact and pledge, our secret sign, built into that bed – my handiwork and no one else’s!”  (The Odyssey, Book XXIII).  At this, she is convinced and rushes to him, overcome with the love that she has kept alive all through his ten-year absence.

While there is in fact a kind of invasive olive tree in our yard, my husband will be clearing brush over vacation instead of constructing furniture.  Furthermore, we’ve only been apart for most of a year—not much time in the scheme of things.  Still, a reunion is a reunion.  Even the guy who delivered the bed today, the father of the woman who sold us the mattress, congratulated us on our new bed, our new home, and my husband’s “new position.”  As a middle-aged couple, we had to wonder for a moment — exactly what new position was he referring to?