Strange bedfellows

After 10 years of marriage and two years of dating, Jeff and I finally made a commitment to be together: we bought a new mattress.

This is a more serious matter than you may think. When we got together we did what most people do when they combine households. We compared who had the best dishes (me) towels (me) pots, pans and kitchen gadgets (mostly Jeff), tools (Jeff) and ditched what we considered inferior.

Jeff's furniture got to live upstairs while most of mine ended up in the jungle gym downstairs. He also claimed to have the most comfortable bed on Earth. While this was true, it was also the mattress he retained from his inferior marriage (the one not to me.) This meant, of course, that there was still the hint of other women within its coils.

Now mattresses aren't cheap, and I'd long put the spector of the other companions aside in deference to the almighty buck. But even the best mattresses don't live forever, and when Jeff started complaining about his back, we started looking around. Vera Wang is making mattresses now. How crazy is that?

Jeff did most of the shopping. OK, he did all of the shopping. I just wanted a new bed. He actually went and test dozed a fairly large selection. Experts say you're supposed to spend at least 15 minutes laying on mattresses to properly comparison shop. I'm sure the sales clerks love that. I'd fall asleep and drool on the things if I laid there that long.

Thank goodness Donna & Crew were here this weekend and that Costco had a great sale going. Jeff borrowed her truck to bring home this 12-inch memory foam thing that came stuffed a box roughly the size of a large dog crate. Donna and Jaime and I had gotten the really bad mattress off the downstairs bed and replaced it with our former bed. So I guess those other women are still with us and we'll be back among them the next time the tornado sirens go off. Oh well. They're next to go.

We got the memory foam mattress out of its box and heaved it onto the box springs. Almost immediately it started moving as if it were stretching out. It had had the life sucked out of it and when it was released from its plastic, it was almost creepy to see it take back its original form. It's a little taller than the old mattress, and when you climb onto it, you sink in a little bit, but it's firm, too. I highly recommend you try one.

Alison wasn't much interested in the purchase, a lthough she did find the box out on the porch where wer're keeping it and all the baggage until we're sure we like it. Ali really wants us to like it and has been asking her dad if we're going to keep it.

Is she worried about the quality of our sleep? The wonder of finally starting off our life together with our very own, brand-new mattress? Uh. No.

"Can I have the box, Mom?" she asked. "It would be a great clubhouse for my Littest Pet Shops."

She's already played enough in the box to probably make a return at least a little bit difficult...