Everything is getting smaller. Modern technology has shrunk the world!
I can speak to the biggest bam in Oz at any point during the day. We no longer have to wait weeks for a letter to arrive, with messages and emails pinging through instantly.
Cars can be tiny enough to hold only two people and still have space in the boot for luggage. Do not get me started on packets of crisps and chocolate bars.
Everything, that is, except me and the mister. We continue to defy modern trends by expanding in ways that are big but not clever.
Time to say goodbye
Our waistlines not the only victims of ever increasing curves and with mutual, vigorous head nodding we agreed it was time to say goodbye to the mattress that has served us well for too many years.
A replacement never quite reaching the top of the list due to other more pressing expenses. But no longer!
If it could talk, the mattress would plead it’s case for clemency and implore us to let it retire, to no longer provide sanctuary and rest for us, it’s shift was done.
And what a shift indeed, supporting two ever expanding humans and their rapidly growing brood.
Ashamed to realise this is now what’s classed as a ‘day out’ for us, we head off to a recommended bed shop.
Himself delighted to find we were staying local, he thought he’d be dragged round IKEA to lump home a multitude of unnecessary hotchpotch along with his new mattress. Nope, we went to a local shop that only sold beds.
Visions of a good time
In my minds eye, I had visions of a jolly good time akin to an Enid Blyton adventure where we could jump from bed to bed and lie in fits of heady giggles as we decided upon a purchase.
I was more than a little off base with this assumption as we were met by an efficient lady asking us what we were looking for.
A rather audible sigh escaping from himself as I enthusiastically asked her to recommend the best mattress for two fatties from my spot on the first mattress just inside the door.
After she accepted we were talking about ourselves, both her horror and hope of a sale dissolved. We were pointed in the direction of the boards at the end of every bed explaining their features and told to try them all on for size.
The horror, the horror
At this stage we managed to find one of the few things not decreasing in current times, the price of mattresses. I attempted to hide my horror and failed.
My face has always given me away and as I lay on another bed I was curious to know what special features came with it for the heady price tag. Did it cook the tea and wash the dishes? Cure cancer maybe? No, none of that, it just lay there day in day out.
I wasn’t paying the price of a small car to facilitate some sleep even if it promised to help me rest. She left at that point, inviting us to come and find her again after we’d narrowed down our choice.
My curiosity led me down a path not conducive to the quick choice. I wonder out loud who invented beds? What did folk used to sleep on before the invention of springs and memory foam? Why is it called a bed? Does mattress come from something as simple as a mat to rest on?
A choice is made
No answer, just silence. I open my eyes to see I’ve lost him, he’s wandered off to get away from my inane pondering and is actually reading the information on the board at the bottom of another nearby bed set.
This one comes with eleventy billion million springs and has a five year guarantee! This one has fewer springs but says it’s firmer. This one doesn’t need turned. And so on.
Had he found anything to guarantee reduced night time hot flashes and completely prevent snoring?
We no longer have to suit just the two of us in this decision and have to remember the seven dwarfs of menopause and middle age; Â Itchy, Bitchy, Sweaty, Sleepy, Â Snorey, Forgetful and Psycho.
£1k lighter, we buy the very first one hoping it keeps everyone Happy.
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