I’ve got a new bed – and a new mattress tae. No more sagging down into a hole as if I were sleeping in a hammock.
The old mattress was, at a guess, about 12 years old, and so had done its bit for Queen and Rab. The bed frame for it was king size and took up too much space in the room so I got a smaller one, made of wood too, rather than metal. It looks lovely.
Of course, it had to be self-assembled, which took about two days. Online, the reviews were as accurate as ever. One woman claimed to have constructed the bed single-handedly in 10 minutes. It took more than 10 minutes to get everything out of the box.
Even once an efficient technique had been honed and the exercise conducted at speed, each of the 40 screwed down slats took two minutes, so how these folk get to havering the way they do is beyond me.
The mattress came all folded up, which made the whole business cheaper in delivery terms, and the manufacturers warned us to give it at least 24 hours to sort itself out.
It’s one of these super-technical affairs with springs from NASA and memory foam on top. But, alas, the first couple of nights on it were uncomfortable. I concluded that “memory foam” just meant “soft”. But after, I’d say, at least four days, it did sort itself out and I got a great night’s kip.
The unbelievable thing about mattresses today is that they often come, as did mine, with an offer to return them after 100 days – that’s more than three months by my watch – if you don’t like them. Indeed, although I concluded it would be too much hassle, I almost thought about returning mine after the first couple of days but, boy, I was glad I didn’t.
I decided to research the vexed subject of mattresses and found several articles highlighting what a problem they’d become because people were buying them then throwing them out willy and also nilly.
One expert described the situation as “a global environmental nightmare”. In Scotland, it was said that 600,000 mattresses were thrown away every year – surely not? – which, if piled up together, would be 100 times taller than Ben Nevis. A tall story indeed.
As for the return rate to manufacturers, apparently this runs anywhere up to 20 per cent. It’s a part of our buying culture now. You don’t have to face anyone when returning items. You just cram your mattress into a pillar box and wait for your refund.
I guess I’m a bit old-fashioned about returning things, though I have done so in person, and find that shops are much friendlier about the whole business now. Back in my youth, I recall the trepidation with which one had to take jumping vinyl records back to grumpy men in wee music stores.
I don’t lose sleep over that sort of thing now. Not now that I’m laying myself down on memory foam. It’s a bit disturbing to think of a mattress having a memory.
Mine is probably thinking: “Oh yes, it’s yon beardie fellow. How he gets his knee to stick out over there is anybody’s guess. But ours not to reason why.”
