Zatera Ul

Saturday we decommissioned Stinky, our mattress, and ordered a new one. I got Stinky as a second-hand dumpster-side treasure when I was single, new to Minnesota, and only had a hard cot to sleep on. Better a clean-looking, used, name-brand mattress than nothing. Picture me dragging a substantial mattress (queen) up a half-flight of stairs by myself; probably my greatest physical feat ever because of the lack of handles on the ends. The mattress had a strong cigarette smell, hence the name Stinky. Carpet deodorizer helped, a little.

We kept Stinky when we got married, for lack of funds to get a new mattress. MFH never liked Stinky, and has Lost Bed issues–once upon a time, his mom’s spare bed had the perfect combination of mattress and memory foam topper that magically cured all his back problems, but then his mom got rid of them both, and doesn’t remember where she got the topper. We tried a couple of memory foam toppers on Stinky, but neither worked for MFH, and we ended up returning them. I liked them ok, except I found them too warm. (We have been joking about making a mattress with a heat pump that moves heat from my side of the bed to his; his freezing point is at about 80 degrees air temperature; my melting point is about 70 degrees.)

Now we are at the point where we can afford a new mattress, and Saturday was the semi-annual neighborhood cleanup day. So Stinky went out the (second-floor) door that opens onto the roof of the back entry. MFH stood below and took pictures while I tipped Stinky off the entry roof, but he was too close to get any good airborne mattress shots. We hauled Stinky to the cleanup, and into a garbage truck it went. Then we came home, and MFH helped me with the bed frame overhaul. It took longer than expected, but I only had to redrill one hole.

Our new mattress won’t get here until next week sometime, which leaves us sleeping on futons for a few days. Both of ours are too firm for me at this stage of pregnancy, but one of them is just soft enough (with a cheap foam topper) to be tolerable.