Don’t Go To Sleep on Me

 

My wife and I bought a new mattress.

We came to the decision to purchase one fairly quickly.

We looked at each other one day and almost simultaneously said, “We need a new

bed!”

I thought the old one was akin to sleeping on a sack of potatoes.

Did I spell “potatoes” right?

Quick! Call Dan Quayle.

The old mattress sort of resembled a school project made of paper mache` with the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon clearly visible.

I’m guessing the differences in our weight had something to do with that.

Over 10 years, an old mattresses can double in weight due to dust mites, dead skin cells and sweat.

A typical mattress will have anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million dust mites in them.

Need I say, “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite!”

Now we know why we bath or shower every morning.

One afternoon, I suggested we go looking for a new mattress.

We stopped at the first store we saw.

We sat on a few and laid on a few and then tested out this high-falutin’ model with a movable bed frame.

The first time I laid down on it, I was sold.

First of all, it has two remotes.

Great!

Now I can misplace these along with all the other remotes we have.

You can raise and lower your head, your feet, turn on the massage and even hit this “zero gravity” button which adjusts to your pressure points.

It feels like floating on air.

There are even two lights on the underside of the bed.

I guess that’s for any of the “dust bunnies” in case they’re afraid of the dark.

The remotes also have a flashlight on them.

Wow!

So high-tech.

Never thought I’d have to plug my bed in or need a remote as I tuck myself in.

Since sleep experts suggest we need 7-9 hours of sleep each day, I guess we spend about a 3rd of our lives in bed.

Good grief!

That means I’m getting close to a quarter of a century sack time in my life.

“Mattress” comes from the Arabic word for throw which is “matrah”.

Remember when waterbeds were the rage a few years ago?

They  sloshed into our lives in the early 70’s and peaked in popularity in 1981 before enthusiasm for water beds “drained” away.

They’ve actually been around for about 5,000 years when ancient folks used  goat skins to hold the water.

The goats thought that was a “baa-d” idea.

Romans had feather beds which probably felt pretty comfy after the predecessors which were stuffed with reeds, hay, wool or even pea shucks.

Pea shucks?

Seems like there ought to be a joke there about wetting the bed.

Same goes for the Hans Christian Anderson story about the “Princess and the Pea”.

Back to the “sleep tight” comment.

That comes from the days when mattresses used to have rope holding them up and keep them from sagging.

Coil springs didn’t arrive for beds until 1865 and innerspring mattresses didn’t arrive on the scene until the 1930’s.

Here’s a question.

Why do we refer to changing sheets or straightening them out as “making the bed”?

Hasn’t the bed already been made?

That reminds me.

The first fitted sheet wasn’t invented until 1958.

“Hospital corners” anyone?

How about having that wool blanket on your basic training bunk so tight that a flipped quarter would bounce on it?

“Sir! Yes Sir!”

When they delivered our new bed, they took the old one.

They strapped it to the side of the delivery truck so it wouldn’t fall over.

Did you know the world record for number of mattresses knocked over like dominoes is 1,001?

Now, we have this king-sized unit in our bedroom and a twin mattress in the spare bedroom.

However, King Louis the XIV had 413 different beds in his castle.

If he started on New Year’s Day and slept in a different bed each night, he wouldn’t complete the task until halfway through the middle of February the next year.

When Neav and I purchased our first king-sized mattress years ago,  we thought we’d need flashlights and compasses to find each other after sleeping on a double mattress for years.

But that might have been the case for the world’s largest bed.

It was 86 feet by 53 feet, a whopping 4,558 square feet.

So who do you hire to flip than behemoth.

Maybe Shaquille O’Neal knows.

He’s reported to have had a bed than covered 450 square feet.

If he bought that sleep unit in Washington, he didn’t do it on Sunday.

For some reason, you can’t buy a mattress in that northwest state on the Sabbath.

Sleep specialists say a third of us sleep fewer than 7 hours a night.

To fully restore ourselves, we need to go through the 4 distinct fazes of sleep.

It helps our brain reduce the build-up of adenosine, which is a chemical that makes us sleepy during the day.

And, don’t think hitting that “snooze” button for a few extra winks will help.

That’s a sleep disruption and you’re better off getting out of the sack when the alarm sounds or add that “snooze-button” time to the front end of your sleep pattern.

Also, a  “night cap” might help you fall asleep but it actually traps you in lighter sleep stages and you won’t awake as refreshed as you would  without a  pre-sleep “snort”.

And, watching TV or being on the computer before “nighty-nite” causes you to take longer to fall asleep due to the “blue light” which affects your body’s release of melatonin.

Plus, those teenagers aren’t lazy.

Sleep experts say they should get 8-10 hours per night, which is tough to do when they’re on their computers or phones until dawn.

At any rate, the Fosters are ready to road-test this new sleeping apparatus with all the bells and whistles.

Wait!

I don’t really need bells and whistles.

That would actually  wake me up or keep me up.