all for a good night's sleep

A few weeks after I moved back to Germany, I decided we had to get a new mattress. I was waking up all geriatric like every morning-- stiff back, sore neck, aching knees. And that was even with sleeping with an extra pillow or 2 for support. I went to the on post furniture store and picked out the fluffiest, biggest pillow top mattress I found and ordered it. Then I was told they didn't have it in stock, but they would order it and it would be here in 4 weeks. That was a bummer because I was really hoping I could get it before M came home because he is just as geriatric as I am...

In anticipation of our mattress arriving, we converted CB's crib into a bed and moved our full size mattress set from the 3rd floor guest room to the kids' room so CB could sleep on it. The plan was to move our existing queen size bed from our room to the third floor guest room and use it as a guest bed once our new bed got here.

4 weeks came and went, and there was still no sign of our new bed coming. The day after Thanksgiving we went down there and asked what was up. It was then that they chose to inform me that the bed I had ordered was actually on purchase order status, which meant that the company would not ship the mattress until they had an entire crate worth of orders for that mattress from our particular furniture store. Oh, ok. Glad you told me that NOW, idiot.

We were in desperate need of a bed because M's parents were coming in a week and there was no way I was going to convert CB's bed back into the crib and move that mattress back upstairs. I asked the guy to go to the stock room and tell me exactly what queen size beds they had so I could choose one. Of course, they had a plethora of firm mattresses, but only 2 plush ones and one pillow top and one wanna be pillow top. The good pillow top was actually a discontinued mattress and wasn't on the floor, so I never saw it, but they had like 6 of them in the back. Here's a tip for you guys: If you want to sell something, PUT IT WHERE PEOPLE CAN SEE IT! We went and looked at the mattress and it had a great pillow top, it was soft but supportive and really quite comfortable, so we bought it. I thought we had the favor of God because it was actually nicer than the first one I had ordered and since it was a discontinued model, it was $400 cheaper.

Since we had the van now, we thought we were awesome and M could just come back without the kids and I and pick the mattress. That would have been great, except for the fact that the box spring was just 2 inches too long, and I was a stinker and refused to let him tie down the back. If there hadn't of been 2 inches of snow and 6 inches of salt on the ground, I would have let him, but I didn't want all of that grime kicked up into my trunk and on my beautiful new mattress. So he put the mattress back in the warehouse and tagged it with our hold tag before he went to schedule delivery.

They promised us the mattress set would be delivered on Monday, which was great. That gave me time to get the rooms ready before M's parents came. Right on time, the delivery guys came and shoved the mattress up the stairs. I went to look at it as they were leaving and realized that they had brought the wrong one. The mattress they delivered was not the fabulous pillow top we had bought, it was some cheap, firm, regular spring mattress. I ran down the stairs and told them they had to take it back. M got on the phone with the furniture store and asked what was going on. Why had we been given the wrong mattress when he had tagged the mattress we had ordered himself. The tag on the mattress that was delivered to us was the same tag that M had placed on the one we had really bought, so someone stupid had switched them at some point.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir, I don't know what happened. Send the other mattress back with the delivery guys and we will get the one you ordered to you soon. The soonest delivery slot we have is 4 days from now". Yeah, ok, NO. That is not going to work for me, thanks though. At that point I thought M was being way too nice, so I made him give me the phone-- it is the control freak in me, I can't help it. 4 days from now was not acceptable, especially when we paid $70 for delivery and they were the ones who had messed up. So I told the dude to fix the problem, and to fix it today, or I wanted the delivery charge refunded. After 32 minutes of going back and forth with this guy on the phone, no joke, 32 minutes, he finally came back and said, "The manager won't refund your delivery fee, but we will get the mattress to you tomorrow." to which I responded something similar to, "You had better tell your manager that if that mattress isn't here today, by 6 o'clock, I will be down there tomorrow, at least twice, to tell the manager just how crappy her store is and how simply unacceptable this is and I will raise the biggest fuss any of you have ever seen. I don't think you want me to do that."

Low and behold, 2 hours later there was a knock at the door and there was my mattress. The guys who delivered it were actually the stock room employees, not regular delivery people, who had to make a special trip out. When they got here they gave the requisite "I don't know what happened" speech. Save it. I don't want to hear it. I don't care anymore, just get out of my house, you smell like smoke.

So they left and M went to work on taking our old mattress up to the third floor room. One would think, since we got the mattress set up to the second floor without problem, that it wouldn't be a problem to get the mattress set up to the third floor because the 2 flights of stairs are identical. Apparently, the flights of stairs aren't identical. The first floor stairs have about an inch of extra room somewhere that allows for the ridged box spring to pass through. The second flight of stairs would not allow the box spring to go up. There was NO way it was getting up there. So after all of the irritation and stress of getting the stupid new mattress here in the first place, it looked like we weren't even going to be able to get the old one up to the guest room.

I was thinking we were just going to have to put the old mattress on the floor and our company was going to have to sleep like a broke college kid until we could order a platform bed or something. But my husband, being the ingenious man that he is, decided he could fix the problem with a couple of tools. As long as there were no holes in the wall in the end, I really didn't care what he did, but I didn't want to watch.

I left, went to the grocery store, and when I came back, he was beaming with pride and told me to go upstairs. And this is what I saw:




Not only had he removed a good portion of the stairs, he had also taken off the banisters and then somehow managed to push the box spring up the stairs (or what was left of them) while maneuvering himself over the gapping hole that opened all the way to the first floor of the house. All I could think of was that one wrong step that would have sent him falling a story and a half... Ironically, that morning I had read a post in my friend A's blog about a call she got (she's an EMT) to help a guy who had fallen through his attic and tumbled down a flight of stairs, onto his first floor. Yeah... thank goodness we have gates on the stairs to keep the kids from climbing on them. These stairs scare me to death anyway, but this, well, just took the cake.

I couldn't complain, the old mattress set was on the third floor, our new glorious mattress was on our bed and oh so wonderful. That night we both slept very well, and woke up feeling like people in the mid to late 20s should feel. It was worth every second of irritation and all of that plaster that came off the ceiling and the walls as M was moving the box spring up. I guess I will just have to buy a big tub of putty before we leave... and yes, we do realize that we have to get the mattress down some how when it is time to move. We both agree that is what the professional movers are for.