We live in an instant
gratification world. The only places we
have to even wait anymore are the doctor’s office and the line at the ladies
restroom and even then we fill that void toying with our phones, sending and
receiving text messages, checking email or losing yet another life in Candy
Crush. If you were born before 1990, you
have the fortunate luxury of knowing a little bit about patience. You ran to the restroom as fast as you could during
the commercial break of Beverly Hills 90210 so you didn’t miss the latest spat
between Dillan and Brenda. There was no pause button for live TV. We video-taped anything of importance and
took our cameras to the store and LEFT them there for days before getting our
pictures back!
After SIP was born, I discovered
my once perfect mattress had become a giant mushy sponge with a broken
spring. I guess the extra thirty pounds
I put on and all those hours of napping really did it in. So Cale and I set out to buy a new one. Three and a half years ago, we bought a
mid-grade, yet still very expensive mattress, the Restonic …something…very
firm. Never heard of it? Like idiots, we ignored all of the negative
and spot-on reviews about the mattress.
After all, people who leave negative reviews are mostly negative people
who are seldom satisfied, right? OR they
are well-meaning citizens trying to spare people like me the mistake of losing
sleep for three and half years…
This past Saturday at the end of
our rope in sleep deprivation, feeling like Navy Seals in training camp, we
decided we could not wait the appropriate eight years to give this brick on box
springs the boot. Desperate as we were,
we dragged our six year old to Sears to look for a new mattress unbeknownst to
us that we had chosen to go to the mall on Georgia’s tax free Saturday. SIP was less than great as he promptly
dropped his sandals on the floor and began crawling and bouncing on all of the
mattresses and making forts out of the large variety of display pillows. Can you blame him? Have you seen all of those beds? It’s a wonderland! And I could not be bothered with disciplining
him as I was there on a mission and this time I was not going to make the wrong
choice. After security called down to
the sales associate and asked her to tell the parents of the kid to make him stop
jumping on the beds, I sent SIP and Cale away so that I could purchase the Serta European
Luxury….something… bed of my dreams.
Originally $6,000.00, Sears was
having a sixty percent off sale (an on-going sale by the way), plus I got an
extra ten percent off just for being me, and I didn’t hesitate to open that
credit card for an additional five percent off.
We came in under a cool three grand for what I am sure will be the best purchase
of my life. Giddy with excitement I asked
when the mattress would be delivered.
The associate looked at her computer screen a few seconds and said, “Monday,
August 11.” Somewhere over the intercom
a needle screeched across a record. “What?!” I have to wait over a week for my new amazing
mattress?! That can’t be, no one waits anymore! But
those were the facts, and I swallowed my disappointment at having to wait and
we went home.
That night an epic storm blew in
with the loudest thunder and brightest lightning I had seen in a long time. About two in the morning, our door opened and
SIP jumped in the bed with us and said he was scared of the storm. That was only the third time in his life he
had come down to our room, so we let it slide.
Especially considering we thought putting a tin roof on the house would
make the rain sound charming and it does, unless you’re six, and your bedroom
is up in the bonus room…then it sounds like heavy artillery and live fire. So we embarked on yet another sleepless night
whereby the horrible mattress was still worse than the tiny kid snoring and
flailing around taking up the entire king set.
The next morning over pancakes
and a marathon episode of Spongebob Squarepants, SIP said, “Dad, I’m sorry to
tell you this, but your new bed feels just like the old one.”
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