On bedding a woman

I want to tell you about the first time I bedded down with a woman.

I should clarify that.

What I meant was a woman who wasn't under the influence of way too much tequila and too little in the manner of standards. In other words, a woman who had every intention of making me breakfast.

This was when I was first introduced to the world of excessive bedding accessories.

I remember walking into her room, heavily perfumed with patchouli (this was a long time ago), looking at the bed and thinking, "What the hell is all that?" More importantly, where was the mini-step ladder I would need to climb in.

There were shims and shams and ruffles and raffles. There were duvets. And it seemed the blankets had their own blankets.

There was even a headboard.
My parents had a headboard.

Until then, I had been sleeping on a twin mattress, laying on a wooden floor.

Even now, as a grown man, the world of beds and bedding is still quite alien.

Not long ago my wife convinced me to buy a new mattress. Guided by the "happy wife/happy life" principle, I reluctantly agreed to this newfangled memory foam.

The first night was a living hell of tossing and turning and muffled screaming about spending $3000 to sleep in a heated ©Playdoh mold.

The second night was even worse.

This went on for a week until I called the store manager. Having identified myself as a long-winded Yelper and a prodigious blogger (I might have told him I was lawyer too), he quickly offered to replace the foam mattress with a standard coil and spring model.

That bed was enormous. A California King they call it. The mattress is so wide it spans two different zip codes. My wife and I bring cellphones to bed so we can communicate with each other. The bed is so big we're thinking of subletting out a portion of it.

And now I find myself battling with bedding accessories of a different nature.

The extra, extra firm mattress is covered with a pillow top. I didn't want that feature but I refer you back to the time-honored maxim of "happy wife/happy life." The pillow top, it seems, needs to be covered by a mattress pad, for reasons which still remain unclear.

As if that were not enough, the mattress pad also requires a protective latex sheathing which serves to shield the mattress from the natural dead skin cells, oil and hair that come off a sleeping body.

There's so many layers between me and the mattress, I wake up in the morning feeling like I slept on a load of wrinkled laundry.

My wife assures me it's all necessary to preserve the integrity and value of the bed, though I'm not convinced there's a huge market for second hand mattresses. Particularly those previously slept on by swarthy Mediterraneans.

I told my wife, when it's time for the Dirt Nap, put me in a plain pine box. No sheets, no shams, no dust ruffles, no pads, no pad covers. Use that money to buy some good Noah's Mill Bourbon for the wake.

I'll sleep better.