A Wee Sprig of Victuals

Last night was my third night on the McRoskey mattress. I slept for several hours, and then woke up with my back killing me. Hmm, maybe it’s so comfortable that you sleep so soundly that you don’t change positions, and then your back hurts. Actually, there is definitely a pressure point at my hip when I first lie down on it, so I don’t know if it can claim it’s just way too comfortable. (I hate a mattress that’s always bragging about itself, anyway.)

In the early morning, I was tossing and turning, unable to find a comfortable position, let alone sleep, and finally gave up and lay on the floor until it was time to get up, which caused a brief yet deeply sincere bout of self-pity.

Not quite what I was envisioning when I spent (brace yourself) $3400. I guess that probably doesn’t sound that outrageous to a lot of people. It probably sounds like so much to me because I’ve never purchased box springs before, and had never spent more than $300 on a mattress prior to the Tempur-Pedic.

At about 7:30, I called Tom. He sounded a bit groggy when he answered. He’s on vacation this week. “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss any of your vacation!” I said. “Thanks,” he said. I ran my problem by him and he said maybe I should give it a couple of days, but if I’m sure I don’t like it, I should just sell it and start over.

My mother said the same thing, plus lamented that I could have bought a computer with that money. “You know, they have computers shaped like mattresses,” she said. “You could have put some foam on it and slept on it.”

She also said (she’s a far better Buddhist than I may ever be) that it’s only money, and it’s not like I scrimped and saved for fifteen years to be able to make this purchase. In point of fact, I can afford to completely throw away $3400, highly unappealing though that prospect is. She said for any person in the First World, this is not a crisis. She is correct.

Tom agreed to lend me his camping pad and sleeping bag again, plus I do have a blow-up bed and pump under my desk at work, though I have a sinking feeling about that, starting with the hour it will probably take me to inflate it. If I think my back hurts now …

I could have bought an electric pump for the blow-up bed, but I was thinking, as always, about the coming environmental apocalypse, after which there won’t be any electricity and I’ll be walking along with Hammett under one arm and my blow-up bed and pump under the other, looking for a sprig of something to eat.

Under no circumstances does McRoskey issue a refund, but they will do a one-time exchange of the mattress or box springs to a component of a different comfort level for an additional $350.

Their firm mattresses are pretty firm, so I would probably have to put a foam topper on it. The idea of giving them any more money is rather repellent at the moment—particularly if by spending $3800, I am able to simulate a floor-like surface, since I already had one for free: the floor!

This reminds me that for many years, I slept on about four inches of foam encased in fabric and placed on the floor and it was perfectly comfortable (to me). It did turn a little green on the bottom. Was that mold? It wasn’t three-dimensional.

But I suppose if I spent $4000 (including, now, the foam topper) and had a bed I was happy with for decades to come, it would be worth it.

But what if I spent the additional $350 and it was still totally uncomfortable, with or without foam?

I called my salesperson at McRoskey and described the unevenness of the mattress and he said it’s supposed to be uniform. He said to try flipping it over, and if that makes a difference, then there is likely something wrong with the mattress and they can send an inspector out to confirm this. If so, they would replace it.

I will also try putting the mattress on the floor. He said that if this is better, it suggests I need a firmer mattress, but I think it will suggest I need to leave the mattress on the floor and sell the box springs.

Meanwhile, my coworker has a roommate who has a Simmons Exceptionale. She sometimes has occasion to sleep on it and says it’s so fabulous, she’s thinking of getting one for herself, though she also claims to be terrified to purchase any mattress whatsoever after watching my experience, not to mention hearing about it at length every morning while she’s trying to get some work done.

I didn’t want to get a Simmons or Serta or any of those because of the toxic flame retardant, but I’m ready to rethink that now.