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<\/a>We bought a new mattress last week.\u00a0 For those of you who have not ventured into the nightmare<\/strong> that is mattress shopping I have one piece of advice – DON”T.\u00a0 We put off buying one as long as we could but my aching back required some relief.\u00a0 Thus began the\u00a0“mattresses shopping experience”.\u00a0 I have to admit, a lot has changed since we bought our last mattress 17 years ago.\u00a0 The Mattress Manufacturers Association suggests you buy a new one every 8-10 years<\/strong>.\u00a0 So we were a little overdue.\u00a0 We did buy one of those foam mattress toppers about eight years ago which over time has developed a decidedly large hump down the middle.\u00a0 It looks like we’re trying to hide an elephant.\u00a0 My husband has been\u00a0perfectly comfortable with this situation but I think “the hump” was getting to him too.<\/p>\nSo on a rainy Sunday afternoon we traipsed\u00a0down\u00a0to our local mattress store.\u00a0 I did\u00a0a bit of research ahead of time –\u00a0I was not going to let some slick salesman bamboozle<\/strong> me into buying more mattress than I needed.\u00a0\u00a0I was under the\u00a0na\u00efve impression that reading Consumer Reports\u00a0would protect me from being the lamb going to\u00a0slaughter.\u00a0 I was wrong.\u00a0 The first thing I learned is that there is a very wide variety of mattresses out there – coil, hybrid, foam, pillow top, gel, water, memory foam, and latex.\u00a0 If you’re interested in buying a horsehair mattress for $100,000 that’s available too.\u00a0\u00a0It’s a dizzying array\u00a0<\/strong>and then to make matters worse, once you decide on the type<\/em> of mattress you then have to zero on the “firmness”.\u00a0 Ah…and there’s the rub, so to speak.\u00a0 What is firm to one person is soft to the next.\u00a0 What is firm for one brand is medium-firm for another.\u00a0 We found ourselves flopping down on mattresses like flounder on a ship’s deck<\/strong>.\u00a0 And this is probably the place to mention that lying on a bed with your spouse, trying to replicate your actual sleeping positions while a salesman looms over you, is quite awkward.\u00a0 Only to be outdone when the salesman puts you on a mattress with a moveable foundation.\u00a0 There we were, lying on the mattress with him at the end of the bed wielding the remote control like a mad scientist<\/strong>.\u00a0 Our legs and feet and shoulders were moving all over the place.\u00a0 Then he started the massage feature.\u00a0 I hated it.\u00a0 It had all the soothing qualities of those massage beds you used to find in cheap hotels where you inserted a quarter and\u00a0the mattress jumped around for five minutes.\u00a0 But I must say I loved the idea of being able to sit up while reading in bed.\u00a0 And the salesman, assessing our age, also noted helpfully that if one of us was ever incapacitated the mechanics of the bed would help us get out and on our feet easier.\u00a0\u00a0We could choose from dual mattresses with individual controls or one big mattress.\u00a0 And that’s where we ran into problems.\u00a0 How would we handle\u00a0Dash?<\/p>\n Despite my early intentions that our dog would never <\/em>sleep on the bed<\/strong>, Dash and my husband conspired against me.\u00a0 Dash now has a full-size pillow right between us at night.\u00a0 I have to admit, I love hearing his breathing and he is always cuddling so now I wouldn’t think of kicking him out.\u00a0 My husband has gone so far as to say he’d kick me out before the dog.\u00a0 It’s always nice to know your station in life.\u00a0 But…back to the mattress.\u00a0 The problem with dual control is that there is a huge split down the middle<\/strong> of the bed – right where Dash sleeps.\u00a0 The\u00a0one big\u00a0mattress with one control is – in my opinion – just another way to fight with\u00a0your spouse.\u00a0 Since everything moves at once you have to be in perfect agreement about when to stop reading\u00a0so you can lower the\u00a0bed.\u00a0 I don’t know about your house but in ours we seldom turn off the light at the same time.\u00a0 So all I could envision were endless arguments about bed raising\/lowering and we have enough trouble just agreeing on the thermostat setting<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Suzanne Sparrow Watson We bought a new mattress last week.\u00a0 For those of you who have not ventured into the nightmare that is mattress shopping I have one piece of advice – DON”T.\u00a0 We put off buying one … read more![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Tempurpedic-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Dash-in-bed-300x204.jpg\")
<\/a>After trying out so many beds we were as confused as when we walked in.\u00a0\u00a0I discovered that testing mattresses is a lot like wine tasting<\/strong> – after a while you have a tough time distinguishing between them.\u00a0 Finally, we were, in fact, bamboozled by\u00a0the salesman’s pitch and purchased\u00a0the Tempurpedic mattress that can sense our body temperature, understand our pressure points, and\u00a0adapt to our weight (good luck with that, buddy!).\u00a0 It was twice the\u00a0price<\/strong> of my first new car.\u00a0 They will be delivering it this week and all I can say is – I hope Dash is happy.<\/p>\n