A Good Night's Sleep

I miss my old bed.

Not the bed I had before my life drastically changed back in August.

I miss the bed I had to leave in Greensboro, North Carolina back in late November of 2005. My Beauty Rest firm, 2-sided, flippable, queen-size mattress. No freakin' pillow-top on that one. The most comfortable bed I ever owned. I slept on it for at least a decade.

When I finally got a job after my grad-school debacle I was able to afford a new bed from the Sleep-Air company. My former boss gave the manufacturer high marks and said I'd get "more bang for my buck". And she was right - for about 2 years. The firm, pillow-topped, one-sided mattress was fantastic for a little while and then, it got strangely lumpy and a spring broke on the side where I normally slept.

When I bought the mattress, it came with a 10-year warranty. Unfortunately, The Spring Air mattress place closed down about a year after I purchased my bed. They'd been in business FOREVER in Seattle! They left town with no forwarding address. If I wanted to complain, I had to call Canada or Texas. So, I came up with a solution. I flipped the mattress over to reveal its very lightly padded side and bought a memory foam cushion to place on top of it. That worked out great for a year.

Did you know that it is nearly impossible these days to buy a mattress that can be flipped? They all had 2 sides made for sleeping up until about 10 years ago, apparently. Then, somebody in the bedding industry got wise and figured out that mattresses would wear out much more quickly if you could only sleep on one side. Prior to that, salesmen advised customers to flip the bed periodically, for better wear and tear. Good old planned obsolescence reared its ugly head.

And why am I writing this? Well, it is 4:15 in the morning. Once again, I have been awakened by aches and pains. Since I moved back in with my sister, I have slept on a futon (became way too lumpy), an air mattress (which deflated after it got a couple of leaks - my patch job was unsuccessful), and now a memory foam pad on the floor (the best solution but far from ideal). I don't want to purchase a used mattress due to all of the recent bed bug scares. Icky.

Times like these I'm glad I'm not skinny. At least I have a little bit of my own padding to soften things a bit.