alignment of the stars

i just love it when stuff works out. so… we recently gave our full-size bed (mattress and box spring) to a friend who had a frame but no mattresses in their guest room. the bed had been in our guest room, but we had been thinking of getting a new bed for ourselves and giving them the guest bed would allow us to shuffle things around in such a way that we would be able, nay obligated, to get a new set of mattresses for ourselves. i also realized that my tiny linen closet would be much less crowded if it only had to house one size of bedsheets. so the sheets went with the bed. then we went shopping for new mattresses. have you ever shopped for mattresses? it’s more difficult than you might think. how do you, in a large, public area, cozy up into a “typical sleeping position” with your spouse? how can you tell how this mattress set will feel after a week of sleeping on it? how do you choose from the myriad, mostly-the-same mattress style choices? mr. happy stuff and i quickly developed sensory overload and, sufferering from the paradox of choice, we went home grumpy and not at all enlightened in our search for a more comfortable bed. three days later, we got a call from a friend who had decided to purchase a new set of queen size mattresses for herself because the ones she’d slept on for the past six years were too soft. she had heard from the friend who got our full size mattresses that we were in the market, so she called to ask if we’d like to take her old mattress set. wonderful! we don’t have to shop around, we don’t have to pay out the wazoo, and even if it’s not the perfect mattress for us in the end, a pillowtop will beat our old mattresses (sorry houseguests) any day (and then we can resume the search for the perfect mattress). so, i donned my overalls and baseball cap and together, we borrowed a pick-up truck and did the great mattress switcheroo. we slept on our “new”mattress last night. mmm…. soft. and a lot taller than our old set. i’ve said it before but… i just love free stuff.