Sunday 31 July 2016

So, am I officially an adult now?

I just bought a mattress, for the first time in my life.  (Alas, I didn’t see this article on the best mattresses for sex until the next day.  Luckily, it’s so crappy & poorly written that it wouldn’t have made a difference.)

What prompted me to make such an expensive, adult-like purchase?  It's kind of a long story, but, like many such tales, it comes down to pain.

In high school, I bought myself a futon.  It was so much cooler than a conventional mattress & box spring, not to mention cheaper.

& I did the same thing in college, selling that futon to some gullible incoming student when I graduated.

When I moved to Scotland in 1997, I wasn’t living in a dorm or a furnished flat for the first time in my life & I needed some semblance of a bed.  I did, literally, sleep on the floor until I got some temp work & could scrape together the money for a futon.  It was made from organic cotton only, no foam or wool or other fillers.  Calling it “firm” would be generous; I’m not sure it was a huge improvement over the floor.  I shipped it overseas when I moved back to NYC, where it took up most of the floor space in my studio apartment.

I rather liked it on the floor but, when I moved up to MA, I decided it was time to treat myself to a frame, which I have rather charmingly strung with fairy lights.

By 2012, the cotton futon had gotten so compressed that it felt like I was sleeping on concrete.  City Boy bitched about it, too, & I gradually developed chronic lower back pain.  I was unemployed but at one point I was in such agony that I splurged on a cheap new futon, as documented at the time in this blog post.  It had springs in it to make it softer than a regular futon, almost a hybrid form of bedding.  City Boy, of course, refused to contribute to the cost but he did do one useful thing: he procured a feather mattress topper from a friend who was giving it away.

I put the futon & mattress topper on top of the old futon, princess & the pea style.  
It wasn't really a pea; the princess had tucked her
dildo under the mattress & forgotten about it.
For awhile, my back was better.  & when it wasn’t, it gave me an excuse to see my smoking hot chiropractor.

But over the last year, as my life has otherwise gotten better in every respect, my back has gotten worse.  Even sexy chiro can’t help at this point.  The springy futon feels comfy; I have no proof beyond circumstantial evidence that it's the source of the problem.  But I’ve begun to worry there might be permanent damage being done, not to mention how the lack of sleep ages me prematurely & drains my energy.  It affects my ability to focus on work or pleasure, makes me irritable, intrudes upon exercise, & generally circumscribes my life.  This is not the best time for me to be using up the last little bit of credit on the one credit card that isn’t at its limit, but if a new mattress fixes the problem, it will be worth the risk.

Part of fairy tale often left out: Goldilocks stopping to stir her
honey pot when she tried each bed.
I tried a bunch of mattresses, Goldilocks style, &, to be honest, it is difficult to tell in the showroom which will be comfiest in the long run.  I chose a mid-priced option — neither the cheapest nor the most expensive.  I couldn’t splash out on a luxury model, nor do I think all the bells & whistles are necessary, but the money would be wasted if I got a cheap-o model that wasn’t supportive or didn’t last very long.

Trying out the mattresses in the showroom, I was surrounded by couples, many of whom had just bought houses.  Some were buying mattresses for guest rooms, which struck me as a real luxury.  It seemed like such an adult thing to do, like buying property or insurance.  It made me wonder if we ever completely stop feeling like we are play-acting at being adults.  Everyone I’ve asked said that feeling never completely goes away.

Had to pay for delivery as I don’t know anyone with a truck, but they hauled away both old futons, which is convenient, as the alternative would have been to drag them into the garage for raccoons to nest in.  The cat, who hides under the bed when strangers come into the house, was deeply traumatized that it failed to be the safe hiding place she was used to.

The new mattress is so much higher than the futons that it almost completely covers the headboard.  I hope I can still hold onto it. 

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