The King of Marshmallow Bed Island

The process of buying the bed was irritating.  First, my Long Husband is also a sound sleeper.  He never wakes up wondering if he accidentally slept in some strange yoga pose or otherwise confused because of strange body aches or pains.  He never sleeps like a monkey to accommodate our baby because, well, he just sleeps.  Anyone in his path sleeps at their own risk.  I can roll him over, kick him, talk to him, nudge him, or shake him all I want and the change in posture is good for about 15 seconds.  He isn’t selfish.  I’m sure he wants to be more accommodating; it’s just that he’s too busy working his night job to do anything but sprawl on his back.  His night job is snoring.  He’s a hardcore lumberjack.  It’s the kind of snoring that inspires one to lie there and contemplate ‘things’ to ‘do about it’.  Sometimes, I fantasize about forcing him to see an ENT (which he really should do, I know) the next day,  other nights I think about getting up and getting a tape recorder and recording him.  Once, I called his office in the middle of the night and left a voice mail message for him so that when he arrived the next morning, all bright-eyed and well-rested, he could hear himself snore on his VM.  That didn’t get quite the reaction I had hoped.  It seems that voice-mail-snoring is only funny to the snoree and only in the middle of the night under deprivation of sleep.  So, suffice it to say that my husband didn’t feel the need to get a new bed.  Ours was working out just fine on his side.  It took some convincing over a period of months.

Once we decided to take the leap into the world of beds built for two, I had a realization.  It occurred to me that we would have no bedding for said bed.  Yikes.  That’s bad.  It’s bad because it means a new bedspread or comforter and duvet, which means an opportunity to redecorate a room, which is not a responsibility I take lightly.  Most of all, it’s bad because it means needing new sheets and I’m a sheet snob.  Total. Sheet. Snob.  My current favorite jeans came from Target but don’t let my thrifty ways fool you… for me, it’s 600 count or higher.  If sheets aren’t totally up to my standards, I’m not even interested.  Yes, hotels make me crazy with their crispy sheets.  I have to take sleeping pills.  Seriously.

So, those who know me know that we don’t do credit cards.  We’re in this magical place where our cars are both paid off and we have no credit card debt.  These days, a Visa check card is sufficient for most travel-related things and anything else can go on the AmEx and be paid off before the month is up.  I spend more money than I should, but I don’t spend money that I don’t have.  That’s my ‘thing’.  But, the realization that I was looking at probably $500 in bedding in addition to the bed…  let’s just say I didn’t want to buy a bed and then feel either rushed to choose linens or forced to settle on less-than-perfect sheets.  I decided I would buy linens first and then we’d buy a bed.  So I did.  Yummy sheets (900 ct.  yea!  And the color is ‘aloe’ which just sounds soothing), a down-alternative comforter, a beautiful duvet.  New pillows.  So it’s time to buy the bed, right?

It’s Labor Day weekend, my back is broken and as I’m out running errands, I stop at a mattress store.   I say I’m looking for a blah,blah,blah and am immediately pointed towards Marshmallow Mountain and was immediately in love.  Price was way down and would make me very happy.  I called my Long, Lumberjack Husband from the mattress and told him I had found a bed that he needed to look at,  and he says to me,  “Sweetie,  I don’t see how we can buy a bed right now.  We spent a lot of money last month and when we do that, we need to make up for it by cutting back this month.”  Now, I’m mostly irritated because this money thing is a new platform for him and I’m not used to being told how to spend our money.  But the simple, undeniable fact is that the reason we spent so much extra money last month (you all are way ahead to the punch line already, aren’t you?) is that we bought a ton of new bedding in anticipation of our new freaking bed! 

So,  I headed home where I patiently explained to Long, Lumberjack, Suddenly Budget-Conscious Hubby that the previous expenses were really just a part of this expense and that after all the searching to find those perfect aloe sheets I wasn’t about to go traipsing around Atlanta returning all of those  things to various stores and that actually, although several hundred may seem like a large chunk,  I took great pains to make sure that it was a considerably smaller amount than it could’ve been had I not been such an efficient shopper.  Well, I got my agreement but it took a few weeks to drag my Long, Lumberjack, Suddenly Budget-Conscious Hubby to the mattress store.

We went to a few places.  Mattress buying can be tricky, which means that I love it.  If negotiating is involved, let me at it.  If I could have a job buying cars… we’d be buying more 800 thread count sheets.  The thrill of making the offer and the whole process of making it happen, I love it.  It’s like candy.  Mattress people change prices more often than you can believe.  There is almost always a sale,  President’s Day,  Columbus Day, Labor Day, Arbor Day, Teacher Appreciation Day…  all good excuses to slash prices.  On any given non-sale time though, the same mattress can be marked 50% higher.  The trick is to know what the sale price of the mattress usually is and to remember that if Mattress Man can give you that deal on Grandparent’s Day, he can do it on Wednesday, too.

We ended up with Marshmallow bed.  Probably mostly because it’s the one I found in the first place.  It is an amazing bed though.  It’s super-supportive but has a 6-inch foam pillow top that is just heavenly.  At the first store, Long, Lumberjack, Suddenly Budget-Conscious, Reluctant but Ready- to- Buy- Mattress Hubby said he couldn’t tell much difference between the beds that were basically cloth-covered cement and the latex or memory foam models.  I told him he was officially disqualified from the final decision making round.  What surprised me next was how easy the process was.  It was a Tuesday.  Not a special Tuesday.  Just a regular day.  The sales rep was not the one who had been there weeks prior when I had come in during the sale.  Indeed, the delicious bed was now marked up 40% higher than the sale price I had seen.  Long, Lumberjack, Suddenly Budget-Conscious, Reluctant but Ready -to -Buy -Mattress Hubby says, “We can’t afford this one.”  And I say, “Yes we can. Watch me.”  I explained to the rep that I had come in during a sale and had seen this very bed and would like to purchase it now at the same price.  She asked me how much it had been at the time.  I told her, and added that the sales rep had promised free-shipping and had even said he would throw in an extra ten-percent off if I bought that day (which I clearly did not) and she smiled and said, “No problem.”

So, the purchase of the bed was one of the simplest transactions of my life.  We got an amazing deal.  Two beautiful delivery men brought it to the house later in the week and set it up and removed our old beds for us.  After the first night, I got an email from my husband, who now loves our bed…  “Our new bed is evil.  I feel like I’ve been drugged.”  It seems he is sleeping well on the marshmallow island we’re calling our bed.  Still snoring, but he’s practically doing it 3 states away now so it’s not so disruptive. 

The bed has not cured my insomnia, obviously (it’s 4:24am and I’m blogging rather than sleeping).  It has, however, made lying awake more bearable.

~ by janedavisblogs on February 1, 2008.