mattress abortion

I guess the story of our mattress should begin close to 20 years ago, when B. and I took our fabulous, once-in-a-lifetime, vacation in Rome. We stayed in a rooftop apartment in the medieval quarter, which we'd rented from an Airbnb-like agency before Airbnb existed. We slept in what I'm told Italians call a "marriage bed": a king-size bed made out of two twin-size mattresses put together in a single frame with a single set of sheets. The idea is that if one party gets up during the night or twists and turns a lot, vibrations through the mattress don't disturb the other person's sleep.

When we replaced our mattress the next year, I thought we should get something like that. But for some reason it wasn't available, so instead we minimized the vibration factor by getting a mattress without connections between the coils. This has served us fine, except that such a mattress doesn't spread out the pressure from where you sleep, either, and over time develops sags in the spots where you are.

B. awoke from a bad night's sleep on Monday and said, "We're going mattress shopping, today." OK, but I need a lot of time to get ready these days. We went to the same shop where we bought the previous mattress, and their records go back that far. Nobody there except the manager, who was very helpful. And yes indeed, they do now have the Italian marriage bed, which is called a "split king," and furthermore each half has an independently controlled hospital-bed function to raise both the head and the foot, and we could really go for that.

Though it does mean that, though we can share blanket and comforter, we'd best use separate sheets for the two halves.

It's in stock, so delivery: next day, Tuesday. I did warn the mgr: when we moved, soon after buying the old mattress, getting it up the twisty staircase to our new bedroom required folding it in half and strapping it down (because a fat mattress doesn't want to stay folded), and it still took three strong guys a lot of struggle to do it. B. showed him some photos she'd taken of the stairway area. He thought the removal could be done.

The mattress deliverers came today. Two of them. First they were confused that they were delivering two twin mattresses but there was only one frame, but once we got over that, they wrestled the old mattress into the upstairs hallway and then realized they couldn't get it downstairs. They couldn't fold it, because an old mattress would probably break up. They couldn't flip it over the hallway railing into the area above the staircase, because the weight of the mattress would probably break the railing. It would take four guys to do it properly, and they didn't have two extra guys.

So they put the mattress back and will return on Friday. And the cats wonder what the heck is going on to disturb the normal course of their lives.