25 January 2010

My five year long love/hate relationship with the Temper-Pedic® bed is over. While it was good for all the tender points FMS hath wrought upon my body, it was horrible for my back. You know all the commercials that point out how it conforms to your body to provide excellent support? What they don't say is "Oh yeah, you'll sink into this mattress like a stone, and you'll feel all comfy...until to try to roll over. The memory foam--surprise!--will remember your form and take a long-assed time to spring back, which means you'll just fall back into the hole and be stuck in the same freaking position all freaking night long, and a few months later that form will be permanent, and your ass will sink a little lower even, leaving your back in so much pain that even Vicodin won't touch it. But hey! It's frakkin' MEMORY FOAM! So it RULES!"

Yeah. That about covers it.

I think giving it five years was long enough. Last week the Spouse Thingy went out with me--in pouring, pounding rain, I might add, which might mean he kinda likes me a little bit--to go bed shopping. The first place we went is a decent enough place to buy a bed, and the old guy there is helpful enough, but the "best" bed on the floor was a brand I'd never heard of, and while it felt like a bed I would love for a long time, I wasn't quite ready to slip a ring on its box-springy-finger and commit.

So, we went elsewhere and looked at a Sealy--which was decent enough--and then home to scope out the first bed online.

Surfing for reviews on the Chateau line of this company's beds didn't turn up much, but on the company itself...very mixed reviews. Too many people hated them, which seems normal with beds as they're either a love them or hate them kinda thing, but I got the impression trying to get help with warranty issues was a PITA.

If I'm going to commit to many years of my life with a mattress, and part of them bare assed nekkid, I want the assurance of a little support, you know?

Shut up. You get nekkid in bed once in a while, too. Sometimes you're not even alone. I hope.

So the next day we drove across town to scope out a friend-recommended bed brand; I didn't have high hopes for the place we were headed to first--any place with "discounters" in the name tends to make me think of cheap bug-infested crap--but the sales guy there took a lot of time with us and didn't try to steer us towards the pricey merchandise just because he could. He actually asked a ton of questions about sleeping issues, took note that I needed something firm for my back yet soft for all my tender points, and had us try out at least 6 different mattresses...and once I'd declared "I think this is the one" he had us go back and try them all again just to be sure.

You know, there are limits to how you can try out mattresses in public? Lesson learned.

The one I thought was the right one turned out to be the one recommended to me, but at least the guy gave us tons of options. Better yet, it was nearly a grand less than I'd seen online and he threw in the bed frame (not a cheap one either...though I know all the stores will throw it in "for free, because I'm the manager and I can do that") and delivery.

I was not at all sad to see the delivery guys haul away the Temper-Pedic...I'd had high hopes for that bed and it dashed them every night.

Four nights on the new bed...very nice. My back isn't miraculously cured, but it's also not screaming at me from the moment I wake up.

Better yet, the cats seem to approve.

And face it, without kitty approval, it means nothing; it would just be an expensive lump in the middle of the bedroom floor.