The Mattress Goes BAA

 

Having determined that we would replace the mattress, my husband set out again for the mattress store. Once again, I wasn’t sure what was going on, or if we were buying, exchanging, or what.

Neither of us had done any research about mattresses. Me, because I had no clue what was going on. As for my husband, he was just trying to get his back to stop hurting.

He decided we needed a firm mattress with a softer mattress top. So, the helpful sales lady, who I’m sure by now thought we had been bitten by rabid bats, had us rest on first this mattress then another mattress.

He narrowed it down to two. One was a Stearns and Foster, which our old mattress had been, and the other was by a company I’d never heard of.

The Stearns and Foster was obviously not of the same quality as the mattress he’d so cavalierly tossed away a few weeks early, but it was also much better than Count Dracula’s slab.

The other mattress felt very nice and comfy. I liked it.

Until I didn’t.

I asked what was in the mattress. The helpful sales lady told us the mattress was by Spink and Co., out of England, but now made here in the USA, only out of wool from Yorkshire, England, and this was the same brand that the royals in the UK slept upon. The wool inside came from sheep, cashmere, angora, alpaca, etc.

“I’m allergic to wool,” I reminded my husband.

“It’s in a mattress,” he said.

“I’m allergic to wool,” I said again.

“It’s all been cleaned. It’s not that foam stuff that off-gasses. It’ll be fine,” he said.

“I can’t wear a wool coat,” I reminded him.

He bought the mattress with the wool in it. It cost about four times more than the first mattress.

The day the mattress arrived, it came encased in cardboard and plastic. After it was placed in the mattress encasement, and the movers left, I could feel the itch all over my body.

I had the air purifiers on high.

It’s just the wool from the plastic encasement, I told myself.

I also smelled something. I am quite sensitive to odors. At first it smelled faintly like cow, then it turned to a smell like burlap.

Everything seemed to have calmed down after the air purifiers ran a few hours, and it was even better after I showered.

Then my husband caught an upper respiratory thing, and gave it to me, and I had no way of knowing if I was sneezing and had watering eyes because of the virus or the mattress.

I started getting up at 5:30 a.m. just to get off the mattress.

It’s now been three weeks since we purchased this mattress. I still won’t make up the bed; I smooth out the sheets and then fold them all back, letting the thing air out even if it doesn’t need it.

My upper respiratory virus is better, aside from a lingering cough. My husband still has a bit of a cough, too.

And last night when we ran the humidifier, because we both seem to be very dry, I smelled burlap again. When I mentioned it, my husband scoffed.

“You could smell an ant fart 3 miles away,” he said.

This doesn’t have an end yet.

I don’t know that it will. I may be fine sleeping on this mattress. It sleeps very well, I have to say. It’s very cozy and comfortable.

But it also has wool.

And like I said, I’m allergic to wool.

Stay tuned.