“I think I heard a noise downstairs. You’d better go check.”
“I thought you paid that bill.”
The other day, my wife said the words I dread as much as any of those:
“Do you have time to help me flip the mattress?”
“Of course, sweetheart,” I wanted to reply, “right after I go out to the garage, turn on the ignition, wrap my lips around the exhaust pipe and inhale for an hour or so.”
Mattress flipping never used to cause suicidal thoughts for me. The first mattress we shared was a double and could be easily flipped by a reasonably-strong adult. But now we have a mattress that is large enough to hold the offensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and moving it is like wrestling an alligator.
The reason we have a mattress that size is because it’s being shared equally by three of us: One half for her, most of the other half for an eight-pound dog and whatever space is left over for me. If any.
Flipping it involves all three of us. She has to lift one side, I have to lift the other and the dog helps by lying in the middle of it throughout the whole process.
Compounding the problem is that there isn’t enough room on either side of the bed to move the mattress to the left or right. So it has to be dragged to the end of the bed, then hoisted over a wrought-iron footboard, but under a chandelier that hangs down just above it.
If it’s not moved just right, the mattress will snap back and catapult the chandelier through the bedroom window and into the backyard.
All of which leads to warm matrimonial exchanges such as:
“What are you doing? You have to lift your side higher than that to get it over the footboard.”
“I’m lifting it as high as I can.”
“Then how come my side is higher than your side?”
“My side’s heavier than your side.”
And:
“Be careful. If you lift it that way, you’re going to hit the chandelier.”
“Good. I HATE that chandelier.”
And:
“As soon as we get this mattress flipped, we need to talk.”
Based on the recommendation of mattress manufacturers, mattress-flipping is a struggle we’re supposed to go through every few months. I’m not sure why they say that, but I have my suspicions.
I’m pretty sure it’s a marketing scam because they know mattress-flipping eventually will cause a lot of couples to break up and one party to move out.
And he’ll have to buy a new mattress.
Contact D.L. Stewart at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.
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