Comfort Zone

Comfort Zone

George and I need a new mattress. So on a recent shopping trip we roam around, find a shop that advertises the best mattresses in town for a decent price.

‘Mattress Firm’ displays hundreds of beds in a huge showroom. Row upon row of unmade beds. Except at the ends of each bed, there are these little spreads, I guess they’re for the dirty feet of customers. I am annoyed at all the unmade beds with tiny spreads.

A salesman practically pounces on us as we enter. I’m thinking it’s a slow shopping day for unmade beds with tiny spreads.

“Hey there! Hi! I’m Nate! By golly, I’m glad you chose to come to Mattress Firm today! We’re having a big Memorial Day sale! Today, and our special, for today only! You can get a queen set for the price of a double, or a king for the price of a queen! And we’ll even throw in wonderful sheet set for free!”

“We’d like to look around a bit.” George is methodical. He likes to take his time, check things out. I’m guessing he’ll probably test all the unmade beds and put his feet up on those tiny spreads.

“You don’t say! Well, sheesh, I’m so glad you came in today! I’ll be glad to help, sir! Can I show you something special? Do you and the Mrs. want something in an automatic bed? An adjustable mattress with different settings for each side? A heated mattress? A firm mattress? A mattress that vibrates? One that adjusts when one or the other snores?” Nate was all smiles. He saw dollar signs after all those exclamation points and question marks.

“To tell you the truth, Nate, the lady here and I just want a bed. A plain old ordinary bed. This bed would help us get a good night’s sleep. A bed that would support us for about twenty years, because that is about all the years we have left on God’s green earth. This bed would cost a good bit of money, so we are willing to pay what we feel would be a fair price for a good bed. We don’t care about anything that is too firm, that vibrates, or heats, or adjusts. If one of us snores, we don’t care. We take out our hearing aids at night, so we never hear a thing. An adjustable bed would make it harder to get out of a bed in the morning. I’m thinking it would make my vertigo a little worse and I’d probably fall. A bed that heats up would insure my lady won’t snuggle with me at night, and that I wouldn’t like too much. Too firm of a bed wouldn’t be nice for our old bones. We need something just a bit soft as we ourselves are just a bit soft in places now. If the bed vibrates, well, the lady here would probably get little too much pleasure out of that as well, and then maybe not need me any more, so no thanks to that feature. So, Nate, just a plain ordinary bed. I’m sure that is still being made by someone. Can you help us with that?”

Nate seemed a little surprised. “Just a moment. I’ll find someone who can be of service.” Off Nate dashed to an office.

“Well, I never. George. I think we’ve been dismissed.”

“Marie, he was annoying me. Trying to sell us all that fancy stuff. We just want a basic mattress. Like we talked about.”

“I don’t know. That vibrating feature might be fun.”

Another salesperson came our way.

“Welcome to ‘Mattress Firm’. I’m John. Nate had to take a call. Can I be of service?”

“Well hello, John. Marie and I would like to see a nice, basic mattress. But Nate mentioned something about a vibrating feature?”