My mattress was getting a little geriatric. It was the first new mattress I’d ever bought, and one of the first things I bought when I got divorced and moved to this house. I didn’t have a lot of money then, so it wasn’t particularly fancy, but it suited me fine. I had a memory foam topper on it and some nice smooth sheets.

I slept in the middle of that thing, 99.9% of the time by myself, for nine years, and it was beginning to show its age. With the two of us in it, it was really starting to feel like a hammock. We’d roll to the middle together in the night, which is fine in theory, but in practice makes for sore backs and nowhere to put the suddenly too many arms waving around. It was really getting to Junior’s back, but it was sneaking up on mine too. I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable here, so I’ve been waffling on getting a new one for the last couple of months.

Junior sleeps in a Tempurpedic when he’s not with me, but it’s borrowed and he can’t bring it with him when he moves. I’ve slept in it a few times, and it’s different than a regular mattress. He says people either love it or hate it, but I guess I fall somewhere in the middle. When the room is cold, it felt like sleeping on wet sand to me, but now that the seasons have warmed up a little bit, it’s a little cushier on the surface. I need that surface squishiness or I throw my bottom shoulder out if I’m on my side, but Junior needs the firmness for his back.

So we researched the hell out of it, and when we’d finally had enough on Saturday, we went shopping. We poked and we laid on demos and felt foolish, and eventually negotiated ourselves a mattress and two of those pillows made out of the stuff too.

 

They delivered it on Sunday, so we cleared all of the long stuff out from under the bed and stripped the old one. I’m in decluttering mode (less to move) so off the old one went with the delivery guys.

And in came this giant monstrosity. We got a King size, so of course, I didn’t have any sheets or blankets to fit it, but we’re not terribly small people and it will be nice to have room to get away from each other when it’s a hundred degrees in the house at night. I got crisp new sheets and a nice brown comforter set that fits with both of our ideas of nice-looking.

Poor Junior had to work that night, so I got first crack at it by myself. It’s OK; for that kind of money, I’d better learn to like it. It’ll relax a little with use, but for now it’s oddly hard. It’s very weird to sit down on it and not feel a little bounce; with a spring mattress, you get so used to that motion that you don’t really feel it, but once it’s gone, the absence is strange. People say they’re hard to turn over in while you’re sleeping, but I didn’t find that so last night. Possibly because it’s not broken in enough to sink down into it. I’m quite sure that I’ll come to love it, but my jury’s still out on the pillows. That’s OK though; I have other pillows.

It was a big purchase and put us back a little on the house-buying thing, but I think it was worth it. So we have to save for a couple more months; at least nobody’s back is screaming at them the whole time.