I hate to shop.\u00c2\u00a0 The concept of going from store to store just to find something I want to buy eludes me.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t there something BETTER to do with one’s time?\u00c2\u00a0 Like read a book?\u00c2\u00a0 But every once in a while you NEED something.\u00c2\u00a0 But that still doesn’t mean I’m going to rush out and buy it.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m going to wait until the very last minute, when my life is negatively impacted, before I venture out into the retail wilderness in pursuit of the desired item.<\/p>\n
Felice’s bed has a hole in it.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, not a LITERAL hole.\u00c2\u00a0 Just a huge V in the middle, a pit one tries to avoid falling into.\u00c2\u00a0 First I convinced myself that it was only on MY side.\u00c2\u00a0 Ever notice that couples have sides?\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not sure exactly how they’re picked, but once they’re established, they never change.\u00c2\u00a0 So I felt guilty telling Felice I was going to upset the world order, but being the compassionate girlfriend she is, Felice agreed to switch sides.<\/p>\n
But this didn’t solve the problem.<\/p>\n
So I decided the key was to sleep closer to the edge.<\/p>\n
But then I fell off.<\/p>\n
STILL, I didn’t want to waste a day shopping for a bed.\u00c2\u00a0 My time is too precious.\u00c2\u00a0 I could be surfing the Net or something, RELAXING!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what I’m looking for.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone to do all the shit I don’t want to.\u00c2\u00a0 So I can have time to create.\u00c2\u00a0 I guess they call this rich people.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m not one of them.\u00c2\u00a0 I WAITED for a new bed to magically appear.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, I insisted on going with Felice to make the purchase, because without input I’d lose my right to bitch, and believe me, if something’s important to me, and it’s not right, I bitch.\u00c2\u00a0 And what’s the cliche?\u00c2\u00a0 You spend one third of your life asleep?\u00c2\u00a0 I mean it FEELS irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 But intellectually you know a mattress is important.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to go.\u00c2\u00a0 Which means we never went.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I could never commit, I could never get in the mood.<\/p>\n
But when I awoke on Saturday with a crick in my back that no amount of physical therapy could possibly alleviate, I pronounced to Felice that THIS was the day!\u00c2\u00a0 I thought I’d surprised her, was performing some kind of mitzvah, but it turns out that she’d already cut out ads from the daily paper.\u00c2\u00a0 You see it was Memorial Day weekend and all the bedding emporiums were having SALES!\u00c2\u00a0 I figured this was like the stereo sales of the seventies.\u00c2\u00a0 Just a way to get you down to the shop.\u00c2\u00a0 A good negotiator can get that price ANYTIME!\u00c2\u00a0 Still, it was an extra nudge, I made a commitment.<\/p>\n
First we went to Mattress Gallery.\u00c2\u00a0 Where Felice’s sister had bought a bed.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, Monica didn’t NEED a bed.\u00c2\u00a0 At least she hadn’t expressed interest in one.\u00c2\u00a0 But when Felice started talking about buying one, LAST FALL, Monica and her husband rushed right down to Ventura Boulevard and picked one up.\u00c2\u00a0 I envied their alacrity.\u00c2\u00a0 That they were such professional shoppers that they could make an instant judgment.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas I needed to do a full investigation, RESEARCH, and then STILL wring my hands coming to a decision.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m not sure that Mattress Gallery would have been my first choice, but Monica and Gregg only buy the best, so we figured they’d prequalified the place.<\/p>\n
It was EMPTY!\u00c2\u00a0 Despite the double-truck ad in the L.A. "Times" there wasn’t another soul in the joint.<\/p>\n
At least we didn’t have to wait for help.<\/p>\n
Then again, commission salesmen can hover and force a close, making me anxious enough to need an emergency shrink session.<\/p>\n
This saleswoman…<\/p>\n
I need to believe that the person I’m dealing with knows what they’re talking about.\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly more than me.\u00c2\u00a0 I need TRUST!\u00c2\u00a0 And I got no trust from Yolanda.\u00c2\u00a0 She said the Black Label Sealy was the Four Seasons bed.\u00c2\u00a0 But if that was the case, why didn’t it SAY "Four Seasons"?<\/p>\n
Oh, you’re not hip to this?\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, you can buy the same bed you sleep on in the venerated hotel chain.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, wouldn’t you be paying top buck?\u00c2\u00a0 I need a deal.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean there’s so much markup in a bed.\u00c2\u00a0 And I heard you can ONLY buy the Four Seasons bed through Four Seasons.\u00c2\u00a0 So I felt Yolanda was stretching the truth to begin with.\u00c2\u00a0 And the more she whipped out concepts, the more FELICE lost faith.\u00c2\u00a0 She said you had to break YOURSELF into the bed, sleep on it for sixty days, that it might hurt at first like a new pair of shoes, but then you’d adjust to it.\u00c2\u00a0 Felice said she NEVER buys a pair of shoes that don’t fit, and we split.\u00c2\u00a0 Not before trying the Tempur-Pedics, of course.\u00c2\u00a0 You know these beds.\u00c2\u00a0 From the mall.\u00c2\u00a0 What is it, Sharper Image?\u00c2\u00a0 Or Brookstone?\u00c2\u00a0 Where you lay down and SINK like an astronaut into an all-enveloping foam?\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, it’s bizarre, but so COOL!\u00c2\u00a0 But expensive.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean if a Tempur-Pedic was a bizarre entree at McDonald’s I’d take a chance.\u00c2\u00a0 How bad would it be if I had to throw the thing out and order something else?\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas, despite the so-called "exchange policy", the rule of retail is "you bought it, you own it", and I don’t want to buy ANYTHING that I don’t really want.\u00c2\u00a0 You have a HELL of a time bringing it back, even though the salesman always says TRY IT, YOU’LL LIKE IT!<\/p>\n
Then we went to Leeds.\u00c2\u00a0 Further up the Boulevard.\u00c2\u00a0 Where Robin had the demeanor of Billy Bob Thornton in "Sling Blade".\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I liked him.\u00c2\u00a0 And he knew more than Yolanda.\u00c2\u00a0 But he tried to close us by saying that to get this price we had to come back by Monday.\u00c2\u00a0 And, as Web research confirmed later that evening, EVERY DAY’S a sale at the mattress store.\u00c2\u00a0 So, I was a bit turned off.<\/p>\n
But I liked this Stearns & Foster bed.<\/p>\n
But now I’m going to let you in on the big secret in the bed world.\u00c2\u00a0 THERE’S NO COMPARISON SHOPPING!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like deciding to buy a BMW 745 and going to the next dealer and finding out they’ve got a 743.\u00c2\u00a0 And the shop after that has got a 748.\u00c2\u00a0 And the next a 746.\u00c2\u00a0 Each dealer waxing rhapsodic why THEIRS is the best.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though the machines are identical.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, in addition to the changing numbers, maybe the features are different.\u00c2\u00a0 The 743 has air conditioned seats, and the 748 does not, even though its number is higher, as well as its price.\u00c2\u00a0 But you don’t find this out until the hottest day of the year, after you’ve bought the feature-deficient model.\u00c2\u00a0 Now do you understand why I didn’t want to shop for a bed?<\/p>\n
Felice was willing to purchase the Stearns & Foster at Leeds.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was curiously absent any top padding.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, it was less firm than this Stearns & Foster mattress, and more firm than that one, but both of THOSE had a bunch of top padding.\u00c2\u00a0 Would they have one just the same firmness WITH top padding at another store?<\/p>\n
Quite possibly.\u00c2\u00a0 But you couldn’t call them up and ASK them, you had to drive on down.\u00c2\u00a0 And by this time, it was 6, and we called it a day.<\/p>\n
But we did do the aforementioned research on the Web Saturday night.\u00c2\u00a0 Even using Monica’s password to peruse the investigation at consumerreports.org.\u00c2\u00a0 Which basically threw its hands in the air and said WHO THE FUCK KNOWS!\u00c2\u00a0 That you’ve just got to lie down and see what feels good.\u00c2\u00a0 But at least CU, unlike Yolanda, said in fifteen minutes you could tell what was right.\u00c2\u00a0 And to trust your instincts.<\/p>\n
We never could get started on Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 We pored over the papers and I got hung up on the Indy 500 and by time I showered and got my clothes on we had to go to my sister’s house for a party.\u00c2\u00a0 Which left Monday.\u00c2\u00a0 We woke up yesterday, and Felice said TODAY WE BUY A BED.<\/p>\n
Oh, where to first?\u00c2\u00a0 Beds Etc. or Sit ‘n Sleep?<\/p>\n
Even though it was further away, or maybe because it WAS further away and it’s best to work your way BACK into town, we drove to Tarzana to Sit ‘n Sleep.\u00c2\u00a0 Where a barely thirtysomething oilier than any used car salesman told us he was a manufacturer’s rep for Nature’s Rest but he used to be a salesman so HE’D help us.<\/p>\n
Yeah right.\u00c2\u00a0 Like he wouldn’t be steering us towards a Nature’s Rest.<\/p>\n
I cut this dude off mid-spiel, like you do with a telemarketer, and asked for another rep.<\/p>\n
And that’s how we ended up with Jen.<\/p>\n
We told Jen we wanted a Sealy.\u00c2\u00a0 Or a Stearns & Foster, which is made by Sealy.<\/p>\n
And it was very easy to get it down to two.\u00c2\u00a0 One Sealy and the other a Stearns & Foster.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Sealy was MORE expensive, even though Stearns & Foster is the luxury line, but that’s bed shopping for you.<\/p>\n
And then, lying on the bed we were about to buy, Felice uttered those famous words…"What’s the BEST bed?"<\/p>\n
This is the kind of question my dad would ask.\u00c2\u00a0 As he zeroed in on what he wanted.\u00c2\u00a0 But Felice is a more casual shopper.\u00c2\u00a0 If something feels good, she goes for it.\u00c2\u00a0 And we were so close to a conclusion.<\/p>\n
But it was then that Jen showed us the Aireloom.<\/p>\n
Hand-sewn.\u00c2\u00a0 With a ton of cotton on top.<\/p>\n
The cotton resonated.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d looked up the Four Seasons bed on the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 That was the key, its cotton.\u00c2\u00a0 And on one hand I wanted Felice to BUY the Four Seasons bed, but I didn’t think it was worth blowing a night in the hotel to do our final research.\u00c2\u00a0 And, it’s not like the hotel is a showroom, with mattresses of various firmnesses in each room, with you waking up every two hours and switching to make a decision.\u00c2\u00a0 No, we had to buy a bed at a store, HERE!<\/p>\n
The Aireloom sold us.\u00c2\u00a0 Just that fast.\u00c2\u00a0 That back pain I was feeling\u00c2\u00a0 on the Sealy and Stearns & Foster…it was gone on the Aireloom.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean I’m trying not to sleep on my stomach anymore, but I can’t control it, and on the Aireloom I was pain free in this position.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, this was the one.\u00c2\u00a0 The middle firmness.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was so fucking EXPENSIVE!<\/p>\n
But Felice said it wasn’t about the price.<\/p>\n
But the bed I wanted…\u00c2\u00a0 It was just a little too firm for Felice.\u00c2\u00a0 She wanted the PILLOW TOP!\u00c2\u00a0 The kind of bed a girl envisions partying on in her teenage years.\u00c2\u00a0 Something soft and creamy, like sleeping in Cool Whip.\u00c2\u00a0 This bed hurt my back.\u00c2\u00a0 It was TOO soft.\u00c2\u00a0 But not only was it Felice’s money, it was Felice’s house.<\/p>\n
I told her it was her decision.<\/p>\n
But she knew my decision.<\/p>\n
And I knew what she was feeling, so I said that we should punt.\u00c2\u00a0 Sleep on it, as they say, and come back a day or two later.<\/p>\n
But Felice was charged up.\u00c2\u00a0 She wanted to buy NOW!<\/p>\n
And then, caught in our quandary, this sixtysomething dude in a Faconnable shirt and sunglasses came over and almost whispered, conspiratorially, that we had to try the third bed down.<\/p>\n
What was three beds down?<\/p>\n
The KLUFT!<\/p>\n
Well, what’s a Kluft?<\/p>\n
Jen said it was the best bed made.\u00c2\u00a0 Which, of course, made no sense, since she’d told us forty five minutes earlier the AIRELOOM was the best bed made.\u00c2\u00a0 But like a customer who’d been eating chocolate ice cream at Haagen-Dazs and suddenly heard about CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHIP, we were entranced.\u00c2\u00a0 So we rolled off the Aireloom, and journeyed downstore to try out the Kluft.<\/p>\n
Whereupon a beefy guy stood at the foot of the bed and glared at us.\u00c2\u00a0 We were on HIS bed.<\/p>\n
Oh, this Kluft was TOO soft.\u00c2\u00a0 But unlike the Airelooms, the Klufts came in FOUR firmnesses.\u00c2\u00a0 And if we moved down two, we found one JUST perfect, right between the two Airelooms.\u00c2\u00a0 The difference was split.<\/p>\n
And while we’re luxuriating in the comfort of this hand-sewn bed with more cotton than Eli Whitney ever saw, this beefy guy is prone on the Kluft we checked out first.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, he loved this bed.\u00c2\u00a0 But he couldn’t rationalize EIGHT GRAND!<\/p>\n
And I’m lying there, feeling like an eight year old in the softness of GRANDMA’S bed, that’s the feel of a Kluft, kind of like the beds you see in museums, and I’m wondering WHAT IN HELL this schlub does for a living that he can afford an $8,000 bed.<\/p>\n
Nah, he’s just playing.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s gonna buy the cheap Spring Air he’s comparing it to.<\/p>\n
And Felice is enraptured.\u00c2\u00a0 The Kluft we want is far cheaper than the bed Joe Eszterhas’ younger, friendlier, brother is camping out on.\u00c2\u00a0 We tag-teamed Jen.\u00c2\u00a0 Felice got a price, I knocked a couple of hundred bucks off that, and we had a deal.<\/p>\n
And as we walked towards the checkout desk, suddenly the beefy guy jumped up and followed us.\u00c2\u00a0 Which was quite creepy.\u00c2\u00a0 A Valley stalker, who knows?\u00c2\u00a0 So I engaged him, I finally asked the question, WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?<\/p>\n
"I’m a writer\/producer.\u00c2\u00a0 I work with the Muppets.\u00c2\u00a0 I did ‘Muppet Treasure Island’".<\/p>\n
Suddenly feeling safe, I remarked that he had trouble with real people, right?\u00c2\u00a0 He laughed and then pulled up a chair at the checkout desk too.\u00c2\u00a0 Where he bought the Kluft.\u00c2\u00a0 And then behind us strode the Faconnable couple, who told us they’d bought the same Kluft WE had.\u00c2\u00a0 Er, that Felice had.<\/p>\n
Suddenly I felt good.\u00c2\u00a0 Mission accomplished.\u00c2\u00a0 We got back to Felice’s house and I couldn’t stop thinking about this glorious bed, which was going to be delivered on Saturday.<\/p>\n
And it’s then that I realized I’m a true American.\u00c2\u00a0 Getting a thrill from shopping just like everybody else.<\/p>\n