Thinking outside the box spring

While the country’s supply chain has been racking up headlines lately, my own personal supply chain issue has been front and center here at the Ponderosa for some time.

And what’s in short supply? Sleep.

I can’t remember the last time I slept a solid eight straight through. I’d like to say it’s been months, but sadly it’s been years.

Part of it is my own fault—I have the bladder of a three-year old (who’s going to want it back anytime now) and the bad fortune of usually wanting to quench my thirst with a can of mango-flavored Spendrift from Trader Joe’s right before bedtime.

So there’s that. Perhaps I’ve said too much.

But the other thing that’s also worked against my slumber has been my mattress.

For years the wife and I enjoyed the quality craftsmanship of a California King, Custom Comfort mattress. But a dozen years of kids trampolining, dogs of various weights and sizes jumping on and off, and two exhausted, alleged adults flopping down for the night year after year had definitely taken its toll. And I don’t just mean on the mattress. Don’t get me started.

Anyway the Custom Comfort mattress finally caved—or concaved—and we were forced to shop around for a new one.

I went to the Google, and discovered that now—like salty soup, cheap wine and organic milk—mattresses also come in a box and are all the rage.

Being the trendsetter you know me to be (cargo shorts are still in fashion, right?) I was on it. I thoroughly researched all the boxed mattresses. Once I landed on the one I wanted, I revved up the Mastercard and started the countdown until my comfy new Cal king arrived. In a box.

In the badly produced, low-res video that seems to live on all the boxed mattress websites, all I had to do was unfurl it on top of my existing, seemingly indestructible, original Custom Comfort box springs, which I firmly (no pun intended) believe will outlast us all.

What they conveniently fail to mention is to get a mattress that big in a box, they have to machine coil it so tight it's virtually spring-loaded. My daughter had the misfortune of standing in front of our first one—yes I said first one, keep reading—when we unleashed it from its wrapping, and she literally got knocked across the room.

Oh well, that's what therapy is for.

The first mattress we ordered was the Luxury Bliss® Organic Hybrid Latex Mattress from Plushbeds. You could tell it was a hybrid because it was uncomfortable and expensive.

Fortunately they have a 100-day trial/return policy, with a minimum trial of at least 30 nights.

The first night was great. Then it got progressively more and more uncomfortable. We were waking up with horrendous back, knee and hip pain. Not hip in the sense of trendy. Hip in the sense of “Did you know Rich Siegel got a new hip?”

There was a bit of a rigamarole getting it returned, but the bottom line is they finally did come out and take it back. Which was a good thing because we weren’t about to tackle rolling it back up and putting it in the box.

Setting the pick up date for the return took a bit of planning, because we didn’t want to be between beds for too long, although the living room couch felt like a Heavenly Bed after that mattress.

Being gluttons for punishment and having to learn the same lesson over and over, we went ahead and ordered another boxed mattress. This time it was from Birch, which is the organic luxury division of Helix Mattresses, which advertises on Smartless, which is my favorite podcast. See how that works? Ad people are the biggest suckers.

Anyway, same song, second verse. Long story short, we wound up sending that one back as well.

In the end, we went back to the beginning and bought a real mattress, another Custom Comfort California King. It didn’t come in a box. It came in a big truck with two big guys who set it up for us.

The moral of the story is don’t try to save money on your mattress. You get what you pay for.

Thanks to Custom Comfort, now when I sleep it’s the sleep of kings.

Now if they could just do something about my bladder.

See you next fall

January 1st and I have what you might call a tumultuous relationship. Oh sure, I'm always happy when it comes around, but then something inevitably happens to break the mood.

For example last New Year's Day, I found myself in the ER with my blood pressure somewhere between steam coming out of a pressure cooker and a lovely hillside view. That was because at the time, I'd been prescribed a new med which, come to find out, funny thing, I was deathly allergic to. Doctors, amIrite?

Anyway, this new year the tradition continued. We got home from a lovely time at our annual January 1st brunch with the usual suspects. I was in the kitchen by the fabulous new farmer's sink we put in during our remodel a couple years ago, and turned around to walk back into the living room.

Unbeknownced to me, my teeny, tiny, virtually invisible 90-lb. German Shepherd had stealthily snuck up behind me and was standing there. When I turned to go, I went ass-over-teakettle (hence the picture) into a wall, the refrigerator and finally landed face down on the kitchen floor like a bag of rocks.

Physical comedy was never my strong suit.

My son happened to be sitting in a chair that faces our open kitchen and saw the entire event. He quickly came over to ask if I was ok, which I was. Besides my knee, arm, back and cheek, the only thing that was injured was my pride. And my until then perfect tour en l'air (look it up).

So bruised but undaunted, I continue into the new year with a brand new resolution—to try to be more careful and aware of my surroundings every January 1st.

And look both ways while crossing the kitchen.

Heavy panting

There are some lessons in life you just have to learn for yourself. For example, don’t play basketball while wearing tuxedo pants. That’s one my son learned a couple weeks ago.

Not that playing in tuxedo pants doesn’t make you look quite handsome on the court. It’s just that when you fall and tear the knee, and you need the pants for a concert, it starts to get complicated.

Apparently in the small print on the dad contract, I’m the one who has to repair the damage. So I took the pants back to the tux shop where we bought them to see if they could patch ‘em up. They went in last Saturday for a concert yesterday. Alonso, the swarthy yet rushed counterperson said it would be no problem to fix the hole. Yes they could do it in time for the concert. And of course he’d call me the next day to let me know when they’d be ready.

Which of those things do you think happened? If you said none, then you’ve obviously dealt with Alonso before.

It's frustrating to say the least. Hard to believe, but there actually was a time when businesses couldn't afford not to do what they said they were going to.

Alonso is not of that time.

The pants were ready today. But, and I don't know why I'm surprised at this, they weren't repaired in the way I was expecting. Which was that the hole would be entirely sewn up, with only a hair-thin line left that you could never see unless you were looking for it. I don't know if Alonso did the sewing himself, but if so we clearly had a failure to communicate.

The pants were patched like a pair of jeans. You could see the tear, and behind it an ironed on black patch. The good news is my son wound up not using or needing that pair of pants.

Next time, if I want my tuxedo pants patched up like a pair of twenty-year old Levi's, I'll send them here.