mulberryshoots

This morning, I noticed an advertisement for a Sealy’s firm mattress at our local store. We had slept on a firm mattress at a seaside studio that we visited for our granddaughter’s graduation a couple of weeks ago. Home again, we started thinking of looking for a firmer mattress.

As you know, I’ve had an injured ankle and my husband, G. has had a bad back from moving pianos. Me, with my arm crutch and G., with his cane, made a pathetic pair, hobbling along: you can imagine what we looked like tonight, trying out mattresses. The “firm” Sealy mattress on sale felt like a flat slab without much support. Then, we tried out a $3000 Stearns and Foster mattress. Whoa Nellie! I had never seen nor felt a mattress like that before: firm and plushy the way you imagine beds in very expensive hotels must be like (not that I’ve ever seen one!)

We asked if there were any other firm mattresses. He pointed to one that was extra firm and we lay down on it. Honestly, it felt and even looked a little like the Stearns and Foster but it was a lot less expensive. Then, we asked if we could buy just the mattress since we didn’t really need a box spring. The price a little pared down, we decided it was worth it.

I called the store when we got home to put a payment on the mattress. All went well until he said that if I bought $50 more, I would qualify for free delivery, otherwise it would cost $100 to deliver the mattress! Of course we needed delivery–are you kidding?–with our infirmities and inability to even carry groceries up the stairs, there was no way we could have managed a queen-sized mattress! Then, he asked me if I belonged to AARP (whose mailings I usually toss in the trash without opening them.) “How about Triple-AAA?” I asked in jest. “What’s your membership number?” he asked, saying, “I’m the manager.” I dug out my AAA card and read the number over the phone.

“Yep, that’ll do it–you can have free delivery,” he said and then asked for my AAA number again to input into a free gift program page on his website. “Yep, and you can also have a free $180 mattress cover as a gift.” By the time I had paid for it, an invoice arrived instantly by email. Then the phone rang. it was K., the manager of the mattress store, making sure that everything had gone through and that our free delivery was already scheduled for this Saturday morning.

Here is a perfect example of Helpers interceding on our behalf. I had also complimented K. early in the conversation about how good he was with all the customers, patient and taking his time. He appreciated my saying that. Honestly, I think this salesman/manager felt sorry for us with our cane and crutch, looking for a firm mattress without a box spring, needing a free delivery. . .

So despite all the truly awful things happening in the world these days and the frustration of so many things that have happened to us lately, something positive occurred tonight that truly helped us. All it took was a Triple AAA membership card in a mattress store–and a compassionate store manager who was willing to work his magic!