I have always liked a high mattress. I don’t know why – I wasn’t emotional about ‘The Princess and the Pea’ when I first read the story as a child – but for my money, I like a bed into which I have to clamber.
Many years ago, I purchased an olive velvet bed frame secondhand from an upscale residence. Me being me, I didn’t measure anything. I eyeballed it onsite in its lavish surroundings with hundred-foot ceilings, chaise lounges in every corner and an ensuite bathroom bigger than my house, and said, “Yeah, it’ll work. I’ll take it.”
Of course, as soon as we got it home and the movers, grunting and puffy-faced, pivoted through multiple angles just to get its deconstructed pieces through my bedroom door, I knew that the days of getting to my one window or easily accessing my closet, were over. It absolutely dominated the room, with the headboard bowing slightly under the point where the slanted ceiling kicked in. Nevertheless, I loved it. I’d go up to my second-floor boudoir at night; squeeze past the corner bedpost to get changed into pyjamas; and snuggle down to watch the 42-inch flatscreen TV perilously perched atop a narrow, tall set of drawers that I’d had to put in place of a much more practical set so the bed would fit.
When we eventually moved dwellings five years ago, my behemoth furniture came with me. Gee, for some reason that same group of movers just would not return my calls…
I still have that frame, but over time, the box springs and mattresses have changed. Before we moved, I went through my Tempur-Pedic period. I never see the ads on TV these days, but they used to be all the rage. This was THE mattress to own. If you had one, you had ‘arrived’. Its design meant no transfer of movement from one section to the other, famously demonstrated by a glass of red wine sitting steady on one side of the mattress, while people bounced up and down on the other side.
When first I laid down on my Tempur-Pedic, I felt transported. How had I ever slept on anything else? A few months in, however, I wasn’t quite as keen. It was comfortable, but had a touch of the quicksand about it. Trying to change position from lying to sitting, or turning to exit the bed, took core muscles I simply didn’t possess. When I switched it out for a pillowtop 14-incher, I practically gave it away, as it put the onus on its new owner to haul it out. Trust me… crazy like a fox. A king-sized Tempur-Pedic carries like a couple of dead bodies – incredibly unwieldy and ridiculously dense and heavy. I remember that at one stage of its departure, they completely miscalculated its weight, and it flew from their grip, barrelling down the stairs like a giant spongy sled. I don’t know if it was due to that traumatic experience, or me just being over the whole steps thing in general, but when we moved, it was into a bungalow.
The pillowtop I now possess, combined with some hardy boxsprings and the lofty frame, made my bed the highest it had been yet. My 16-year-old cat really has to wind up her back end to make the jump from the floor. However, thanks to modern-day mattress technology not quite keeping up with my significant fluctuations in weight, last year a definitely sunken bowl shape began to appear in the area where I settled each night, despite the brand’s boast of a 10-year warranty. Guess I hadn’t read the fine print: The Buffalo Clause, if you will.
I turned the mattress every six months, and it would be good for a while, but then that bowl would reappear. So, when I recently saw someone selling a Tempur-Pedic topper, I confess I was tempted – enough, in fact, that I bought it. It was only a few inches deep, but perhaps it would offer the extra support I needed without having to make any major changes to my sleeping setup.
We shoved it into the back of my Ford Expedition, and when I got home, I was able to wobble it out on my own and shuffle it towards my bedroom without assistance. The fitted sheet was going to be put through its paces, having to now accommodate the new addition on top of my already thick-slice Wonder Bread mattress, but with some huffing and puffing, I got everything in place.
As I stepped back and looked at my handiwork, I noted that the bed was now obscenely high. Those few inches took it from regal to carnival. I’m just over 5-foot-7, and still thought I might have to take a running jump at this. Before dragging in a trampoline, I stood beside the frame; flexed up and down a couple of times; and sent my left leg flying up as far as it would go. It was like mounting a horse, sans stirrups. I managed to get a whole calf and a bit of thigh onto the mattress, and grabbed onto the fitted sheet so I could pull myself up, flopping like a whale in crisis at the same time. No prizes for grace; I landed face down, but I was up. The cat just sat on the tiles, watching it all unfold, and as if to mock me, easily made the jump herself, settling in near the headboard.
I rearranged myself, got into the middle of the bed, and immediately sank into the topper like a stone into rice pudding.
&%$#@+!!
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