My Bed of Dreams

 A dream bed - Image source

Sh#$ its morning again! I drag myself awake from a troubling slumber, wondering not for the first time whether it would be better to switch places with hibernating animals or Kumbhakarana - get the entire year's sleep in one go and keep vitally awake the remainder of time?! Not fulfilling my required quota of sleep is becoming a rather traumatic issue in my life. I halfheartedly tear myself away from the warm cocoon of sheets and wearily waddle off on a stiff back to the bathroom.

Having recently (a year does qualify as recent doesn't it?) done up my bedroom, I am yet to purchase a new mattress for my bed. The new Master bed is a regal King size, with a beautiful headboard, a bed I had always dreamed of!

The logic behind going in for this monster-sized bed was that,
a) If the kids ever felt like camping down with us - we had the requisite space,
b) To have enough space between the two of us so that my constant tossing and turning and his snores didn't disturb either! 

The new bed arrived and was thankfully made to aspired proportions and design.

 
The hitch came when I realized the bed came sans mattress! Eager to sample the pleasures of the new acquisition yet overwhelmed by the idea of spending more time, effort and money to procure a new mattress, I pondered my situation….

It was a stroke of pure luck that I chanced upon a sudden treasure that I knew not existed in my abode! It was a pair of mattresses made of pure cotton from the days gone by; that too precisely the size to fit my new Master bed!
 
I recollected that it belonged to my parents, was roughly forty years old, stashed inside the box storage of the kids beds. I had borrowed it from them many years back when they lived nearby and when I had a lot of sleepover guests at home. What an ecstatic find! Reduce, Reuse, recycle...yayy!

Time to redecorate…. I was buzzing about the house....room to room, back and forth! The Master bed was duly appointed with antique-vintage artifacts - the perfectly sized forty year old pair of cotton mattresses! 

Really no one makes stuff like this nowadays, that lasts this long I mused. They weighed a ton each, probably the reason why my parents had never mentioned retrieving them! The mattresses fit the Master bed perfectly and I gloated at how expansive the bed now looked!

Now a few words about the new antique mattress, it was undoubtedly an heirloom, which I prized. I only wished it offered comfort worth its weight which as I mentioned earlier was a trifle too much. Being made of cotton, it tended to get lumpy at oft used spots. When my son joyfully bounded upon it on my announcement that I had finally got a new mattress for the bed....his tush received a rather rude and hard welcome from the old matelas!

Good airing and sunning can do wonders to cotton mattresses declared Google! So the old-revered were duly aired and sunned with a lot of labor, to plump up and revive the sagging ancient....who-knows-maybe-real-Egyptian-cotton!

The cottons revived with all this pampering and doubled in size and I triumphantly launched them back on the bed. 

Well, the old heirlooms held on to some of the fresh air and sun they had imbibed for precisely a day and were soon back to their hardened selves!

My husband and I now had ample space to move about in bed, but no amount of tossing or turning resulted in finding the soft spot our backs craved for! During the day, I draped a thick comforter on it to make it look plumper and inviting, but sleeping atop it, over the mattress....stiflingly hot!!

Google declared that hard beds are the best remedy for back pains and I resolutely stood by this remedy.

It was vacation time at home. My parents had decided to visit us after a long time. I was keeping the newly done-up bedroom as a surprise to show them. They were thrilled to see the beautiful new room I had designed and were raving about the classy wardrobes, upholstery and the marvelous new bed.

They decided to observe the interesting decor changes in the room by settling themselves comfortably on the new bed. Well, it was a shock to them when soft derrières landed on the not-so soft mattress!

I jubilantly declared, "Mom, Dad! Guess what? You are seated on the very same forty-year old mattress I had borrowed from you ages ago; I am using our old family heirloom!" 

I expected them to be thrilled, except now, both of them looked at each other and burst out laughing! My father recovered first and said, "These mattresses came to us from some neighbors who were moving away and we never used them because they were so hard and unwieldy. We lent it to you thinking you would use and dispose it as you saw necessary!"

My family still hopes that someday, the Master bed will be adorned with the latest spring-ortho-coir-memory-foam-God-knows-what-not-mattress, but I am not so sure I will let go of old treasures just like that!

Copyright © 2016 KALA RAVI