I have just heard five words that chilled me to my core - to my
comfortable foam core: "We need a new mattress." No. No. No. I'll
just put my fingers in my ears, like a kid on a car journey, and
sing "la la la la", until this discussion just goes away. I don't
care that our mattress is basically a sinkhole the size of Wales
covered with a fitted sheet, or that it recently swallowed both
cats whole. I hate mattress shopping.
Please excuse my vulgarity but the reason I hate mattress shopping
is this: I can't help feeling that when my girlfriend and I are
trying out a mattress in store we're making a sizeable deposit in
the salesman's wank bank, and I'm not, as my grandmother would have
said, "putting tickets on myself." The act of buying a mattress
should a pedestrian affair, like buying a coffee table or washing
machine, but as a lesbian the experience seems more
sexualised.
Over the years we've developed a modus operandi for mattress
stores to avoid interacting with salesmen. The second the automatic
door opens we separate and conduct individual recces, like two
people who've never met before wandering around a mattress store.
No lesbians here. No siree! After approximately 5 minutes we'll
converge on the 'daddy' of all mattresses, whereupon we poke at it
tentatively a couple of times, and give it 'the knuckle push'.
Then, no questions asked, we throw money at it and leave.
"Do you both like a hard one?' Oh God it's started. I wheel around
to find an eager salesman smiling at us and shoot my girlfriend a
look that says in no uncertain terms, "We are not getting on this
bed. No. Way". He senses my reticence and gives the mattress a
reassuring little pat. "Jump aboard. You won't know what it's like
till you've tried it." Urgh. How predictable. I imagine he's the
sort of bloke who would end a tour of his house by opening the door
to his bedroom and saying, "This is where the magic happens."
My girlfriend disobeys my silent eye command and climbs up onto
the mattress. Then she lies rigidly at the edge of one end, like an
extra on Silent Witness, waiting for me to join her. "And you," he
chirps, "I need to see how you roll together." Oh I bet you do
mate. Reluctantly I climb on and move to the edge of the other
side. He then occupies the yawning chasm between us, and starts
pushing down hard on the bed, as if he's giving it CPR, causing us
to bounce up and down. He claims to be demonstrating 'give' - a
likely story.
But the more he talks about the features, the more I fall for his
patter. I realise he's not at all interested in us, or phased by
the fact he's demonstrating to a lesbian couple, he just loves
mattresses - loves them. His smile isn't sleazy. It's the joyful
expression of someone who totally and utterly believes in the power
of a nice firm pocket spring to bring restorative sleep, and order
to a chaotic world. I think I might have just found the salesman of
my Dreams.
Follow Sarah on Twitter: @rubbishles
