Buying A Bed: Part Three

Once Sam and I had collected ourselves after our ill-fated Bedgate at Macy’s, I started noticing that indeed, I was waking up feeling tired and stiff and unhappy---the primary symptom of need a new bed.  

So I more seriously launched into the research on this whole question of buying a bed, and discovered something called the Sleep Number Bed. 

And the Duxiana Bed.  And then I was heading down the road into a world I never thought I would enter, the World of the Rich and the Very Rich, or at least the world of the beds of those people. Essentially I no longer even cared about Sam and The Bachelor and their bedding problems. The more I researched beds, the more I realized that I myself was in dire need of a new one. So, why not trot myself back to Macy’s and shell out? 

Well, like all things in décor, it isn’t quite that simple. Okay, first there are regular beds, as we’ve seen.  Mattress, box spring, coils, hand-tied, you know. The things you get at Macy’s or some other department store. 

And then there are the beds that operate on a completely different system, such as some kind of foam stuff or air pumps or even, gadzooks, horsehair. 

These start with the Sleep Number Bed. Go into a Sleep Number store and chances are the clerk will launch an elaborate demonstration to show you how the bed works, which essentially is by pumping air into and out of the chambers in the mattress. She’ll also hand you a little brochure with pictures and mysterious phrases like “Dual Foam Layering System.” 

If you’re thinking this is just a fancy air mattress, you’re thinking like me. Now, I did take it upon myself to go into the Sleep Number store and lie on the bed and I did find that as a matter of fact (or could I say “as a mattress of fact”?) it felt pretty good. And if you sleep with someone, there’s the advantage that each side of the bed has its own pump, so you can have a firmer or softer mattress than your bedmate, which presumably prevents marital discord. 

Let’s not go there right now. 

But even though the clerk assured me that this wouldn’t mean getting up every couple of hours and pumping up the bed again, I just couldn’t quite buy it. Plus, what if something sharp, like a clawed cat, jumped on it too hard? (By the way, I don’t think my cats would tolerate those things you stick on the claws to prevent torn up sofas and such.  

And I just want to go on the record here as saying that while de-clawing a cat is nowhere near as terrible as waterboarding a human being, it’s a really, really, bad idea.)  

Another thing that turned me off from the Sleep Number Bed was the hokey name. The Sleep Number Bed is made by Select Comfort. Both these names are hokey, and why are there two names for one company? I don’t like that.   I like a good old-fashioned name for a bed, like “Beautyrest.” That’s a name that makes you feel nice, like the bed is actually going to make you more beautiful while you get some rest.  

But most of all, I was bothered by the visions of my brother waking up after a night on my air mattress in my living room, which had slowly flattened to a thin piece of rubber between him and the cold, hard floor. He looked neither beautiful nor rested. 

So even though the clerk was helpful and the price was comparable to the higher-end regular mattresses, there was just something a little too cockamamie about the whole thing.  

Next I’m working my way up to the more expensive mattresses.  

Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering, I’ve completely abandoned my other home decorating projects. I’m starting to kind of like the stripes on the wall from trying out all the paints, and there’s something artfully charming, I think, about the exposed plugs since the electrical work was done and not done.  

So next I’m going to the Duxiana store. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Comments

[Alison]

I cannot agree more that "Sleep Number by Select Comfort" is a hokey and extremely annoying name. For a long time I thought the Sleep Number Bed was a fictional product made up by Garrison Keillor because he was always pitching them on The Prairie Home Companion. Then one day I realized it was the name of a real sponsor.

Then later I saw an ad for the Sleep Number bed on tv, and it was so strange I started to wonder again if the whole thing was a joke. It featured a man lying on a bed with his labrador retriever, talking about what Sleep Number his ex wife had been. And how handy that he had this adjustable bed, because when he found another wife, all he'd have to do is reset the Sleep Number.

Actually, it sounds kind of funny now that I'm retelling it. But it wasn't.

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