Memory-Foam and Posturepedic Elite Pillowtops
The Skelton Ranch is almost ready to accept visitors. Unfortunately in order to set up our guest bedroom we had to buy another bed, which meant that we had to make an unfortunate trip to a mattress store. Next to car salespeople, mattress pushers have to be the second sleaziest people on the planet. It doesn’t make sense to me that there is an inverse correlation between the price of objects and the gimcrack tackiness of the people who sell them. Mattress stores are exceptionally squalid environments. The fact that you have to try out, test drive a mattress really, by lying prone atop the sauces and stains that a hundred other customers have deposited on the floor models is repulsive enough. Doing it under the penetrating gaze of the salesperson while they bark our statistics about double galvanized steel springs is distressing. The fact is, you need to be in combat mode when dealing with these kinds of sales people, the last thing you want to be doing is lying on your back with your belly exposed to these hyenas. It gives them a huge advantage.

We were doomed the instant we walked into the mattress store as we were the only customers there. The sales guy who descended upon us reminded me of a large, imposing, and over the top Vince Vaughn like character without the comedy. The platitudes and cliched sales talk made my eyes hurt from all the rolling they were doing. At one point he went back to his desk to get a ‘secret’ coupon that he told us only he and another sales guy were given by the Company. It was supposed to be used for people who were buying beds in bulk, like for a bed and breakfast or a Martha Stewart prison but he was willing to make a special exception for us. He tried to make it seem like he was giving us the golden ticket from a Wonka chocolate bar. Saddly, I might of bought his schtick if it wasn’t for the misses who whispered under her breath, “I saw the same coupon online, but I forgot to print it out.” “Ah Ha! Exposed! You vagrant liar. We shall take our mattress business to a more wholesome seller. How dare ye’ try to assuage our uncertainty with your flimflam deals! Six horse-loads of graveyard clay on top of you!”

So yeah, we took the coupon and free delivery (take that!) and bought our bed and got out of there as quickly as we could. Hell, I’ve bought a pair of two dollar socks that I felt better about after the purchase. The good news is that we now have a guest bed. So come one come all.

The misses has been busy all week renovating the guest bathroom too. She ripped out all the floor tiles that we just assumed were asbestos tiles. I took some hot pictures of her wearing the respirator mask, but I’ve been threatened with immediate and permanent divorce if those pictures ever graced these pages. She got all the wallpaper removed and now the bathroom looks like an empty shell. I still haven’t dry-walled the gaping hole that got knocked out on day one. I am waiting for the new bed to arrive so I can rest up for that job.