SLEEP EZE

New Mattress at 20 hours

It came in a long cardboard box, a curled up tube that held a modern-day mattress, one that is slated to take 24 hours to blow itself up but is already lopped over the sides of the bed. You think that any moment now, you'll have to exclaim, "Thar she blows!"

You can order anything nowadays, and the mailman will put it on your doorstep, even if it weighs 100 pounds, and how you get it through the door and into a designated room is your problem. After all, you dare not go in a store because of the dread virus and purchase something you can't tuck under your arm and walk out with. However, you don't have to wear a mask in the vicinity of the object left at your door.

You look at the cardboard tube and gauge your pushing/pulling/hoisting strength and decide to put the object on a rug, and with the help of at least one other person, pull it down an interminably long hall, muttering under your breath. Tools needed: scissors to cut through a sheath of hard plastic; butcher knives; wire cutters; good teeth.

When the heavy plastic has been butchered, you unroll a piece of flat cloth that looks like an army bedroll that has been to Afghanistan and back, hoist it onto the bed, and leave it to rise.

Directions inform you that this object's process of becoming a usable mattress requires time, much like making yeast rolls. You give the piece of soon-to-become your place of pleasant dreams a pat and leave it overnight, commenting to a friend that the way it's rising and left to its own devices, it will soon touch the bedroom ceiling. You're already calculating the cost of fitted (?) sheets and wondering if the blow-up mattress company manufactures one-size only bed coverings.

When morning comes, the mattress already resembles a low hanging cloud, but after consulting directions, you see that at least eight more hours are required for the object's maximum blow-up.

"It's going to take over the room," I tell a friend standing beside me.

"Nonsense, it has only risen about eight inches and will probably be the most sought after bed in your house once it reaches full capacity."

"But what if it decides to deflate when someone lies down on it? Think of unsuspecting guests who come for a visit?"

"They won't stay long, and isn't that a blessing in disguise?"

You look at the object on a steel bed frame that is rising toward the ceiling, walk out of the room, and gently close the door behind you.

It will be a long wait, but you know you aren't going to be the first one to lie down on it—no way you're ever going to be that sleepy.