Phishie Blog

In preparation for my upcoming nuptuals the fiance and I purchased a new bed.  The story of this is pretty humorous to start with.  She’s Chinese and randomly told me one day that I had to buy us a new bed.  I was okay with this and had planned on purchasing a new bed for us anyway since my existing mattress has a big dip in the middle now.  This dip would have been amusing at first since I imagine every time I jump in the bed it would cause the bed to fling her bodily through the air at me and we’d meet in the middle.  I can see this losing it’s charm quickly however.  Anyway I digress.  Apparently there is some Chinese custom about a new bed but she, embarrassed, said she wouldn’t explain it to me and said I should ask my friend Gamera.   Gamera explains to me that apparently if the woman buys the bed it means she’s basically “throwing herself” at the groom.  She should have just lied and told me it was just some random tradition because from then on I INSISTED she purchase the bed 🙂

Anyway, we did some shopping and I learned that the mattress industry is one big giant scam.  You know how all those mattress companies say they’ll beat any advertisers price?  That’s because the mattress manufacturers make a different brand of mattress for each company.  They’re the same mattress with a different covering, and thus none of them carry the same brand.  Thus they never have to match anyone’s price and they successfully make it impossible for the average consumer to comparison shop in order to get the best price.  We tried out a bunch of different beds at a Mattress Discounters and the lady there was really nice and helpful but the foam mattress we liked was $2400 after discount.  We found a comparable mattress for $999 including delivery online at Costco .  I didn’t like her THAT much.  Costco also has a 90 day return policy so if I don’t like it I can just return it.  We purchased the NovaForm® King Comfortluxeâ„¢ Memory Foam Mattress in King size.  I wanted California King but the fiance ordered King by accident.  I’m not bothering to exchange it since they don’t sell California King sized sheets out here in Maryland so it’s probably less of a headache to get the slightly smaller King.  I’m a tall guy though and the idea of having a giant porno-sized bed appealed to me.  Oh well.  Honestly I was prepared to spent a good chunk of change on a bed (you spend more time in bed than anywhere else, might as well be comfortable) but I’d rather spend less if I can get the same quality.

The box it came in today was massive. 150lbs of bedding. The UPS guy said it actually weighed more but they delivered it anyway.  They said they’d deliver it today between 8am and 7pm.  *sigh*  So I had to work from home (God bless my company for making work-from-home possible).  Good thing I was there waiting since the UPS guy had forgotten his hand-truck and couldn’t lift it by himself. He carried it into the house with me and took off leaving me to figure out how to get it up the stairs by myself. With some sweat and my manly feats of strength I managed to push it up the stairs and into the bedroom.There were some instructions inside that basically said “Unpack it, don’t cut the foam.”  Once out it looked from the side strangely like a Swiss Roll or a part of the female anatomy depending on how corrupt your sense of humor is. From the top it just kinda looked like a giant white suppository. Cutting it open was fairly easy. Since the only useful part of the instructions was “don’t cut the foam” I figured I should follow that one instruction and was careful about it. I was eerily just like cutting through the top layer of skin when gutting a deer. You want to only cut the top layer without hitting the stomach or anything else inside so you gotta stick your fingers in there. It then opens up nicely spreading it’s wings like a butterfly emerging from it’s chrysalis.  After removing the outer shell from underneath it I found this lovely little blue tool for opening the outer layer that WAS PACKED INSIDE OF THE LAYER YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO USE IT TO REMOVE. Someone in engineering department went to the trouble of including these things and I’m sure someone in marketing was like “Let’s put it inside so it doesn’t get damaged, and then not mention it in the instructions because that would make them too complicated.” The tool added to my eeriness since it’s basically the same design as you have on hunting knives for that top layer of skin I was talking about.   I tried to use this amazing tool on the inner wrapping and it immediately broke. Back to the scissors. The next part was pretty cool. As soon as I had nicked the inner layer breaking my useless bit of blue plastic i heard a small hissing noise. I could tell it had been vacuum-packed but it was still neat to hear it go.   So I unfolded it in the direction i wanted it to be, and then cut a  2 inch hole in the packaging. The next two pictures are within 10-15 seconds of each other. Right before I cut the hole and then 10 seconds afterwards.  It was pretty awesome watching it expand.  The third picture is after I cut off the rest of the inner wrapping. I then flipped the top over and I was done. The foam itself will take 24-72 hours supposedly to completely return to it’s full unpacked shape but after laying down on it it’s already quite comfy.  I looking forward to embarrassing my bride with stories of how I can’t wait for us to get home so we can “break in” the new bed she’s throwing herself at me with. Pikachu and Squirtle are pleased.