Friday 11 October 2019

Princess and the Pea

I love a fairy tale but The Princess and the Pea was not one I really had any sympathy for. Part of the problem was an inability to identify with a nameless princess. We never really got to know much about her, except that she said things like, “No one can understand how much I’ve suffered.”
Why would she even want to marry a prince and live in the castle with his mother who plays such horrible tricks? Then, you have to agree that it is a very strange way to choose a wife for your son. Why would you want a daughter-in-law that moany and sensitive? I used to think it was a commentary about inherited blood disorders and inbreeding in the monarchy. Such easy bruising used to scream, “thrombocytopenia,” at me.

 


Although, I don’t always sleep well, I can actually sleep on anything. I’m not a real princess. Or, I wasn’t.

The Long Suffering Husband has wanted a new bed for a while, claiming that after 12 years it was uncomfortable. I hadn’t noticed. However, I could agree that it looked a bit tatty.

Off we went to Dreams. They have a machine, whereby you lay on a bed and Caroline Quentin talks to you while the bed pummels your back to decide which of the most expensive beds they should sell you. We were told to get a firm Therapur bed. This is Dream’s own version of a tempura mattress with added cooling gel to stop it feeling sweaty (a known problem for these type). We tried the  suggestion in the shop.

“Oh dear,” said the consultant, “I think the machine has compromised in your favour, Sir,”
Then, looking at me, “Because you are.....”
“Bony?” I suggested.
She looked momentarily flustered but recovered quickly.
“Very tiny. I can see you are just lying on the top.”
The LSH didn’t like it anyway and I didn’t like the way it grabbed you. It’s not a good feeling for someone who is a little claustrophobic.
She suggested a compromise more in my favour. A sprung bed with a layer of this topping.



We spent ages in the shop, lying on these beds. I wasn’t sure about the slidey nature of the material and the sloping edges and feared I would fall out in the middle of the night but with the assurance from the Salesperson that we could change it if I did fall out because they had a 30 day comfort guarantee we handed over our credit card.

The first night on this bed was the weirdest experience of my life. After two hours I was awake and in pain. I felt sympathy for that poor Princess for the first time and checked the mattress for peas. The LSH wondered if they’d accidentally sent us a hard bed because it felt as though we had slept on a hard, cold, sweaty brick. Bizarrely, it felt slightly damp.
“It might take a while to settle down,” I told him.

We had read the reviews and people raved about this bed but some had said that it look a little while to get used to.

The second night was still painful and by now I had sore painful lumps on the parts of my body that made contact with the bed. I was feeling like a failure. You know that feeling you get when everyone has been raving about a book, it wins prizes and then you can’t stand it but you feel guilty? Well, that’s how I feel about this bed. This bed is my Cloud Atlas.

The third night was probably the worst experience of my life. That’s over dramatic. Sorry. I can think of one worse. However, it was definitely up there as one of the worst. I woke up after two hours with a burning sensation over the side of my body in contact with the bed. My back and side had swollen areas that felt bruised and I honestly wondered if I was about to die. Thinking that it might be something to do with the bed, I googled to see if anyone else had a problem with it. They didn’t. The bed wasn’t Cloud Atlas, it was Harry Potter and I’m the only person in the whole wide world that doesn’t like it. There were one or two people who had bought beds from Dreams who were upset that their bed felt different and had been told to give it 30 days. I can see the point of that. Beds do feel different and it can take a while to settle down. However, beds rarely try to kill you, so I decided to call them to trigger the comfort guarantee.

I described the problem and asked for some help. None was forthcoming. No suggestions. No helpful customer service experience, just a suggestion that I was making it up and I would have to continue sleeping on it for 30 days.
  “As you tried it in the shop and chose to buy it then it must have been comfortable and the burning pain must be caused by something else.”
It wasn’t. Last night I slept in my daughter’s bed. I’m not a princess. There were no killer peas in her bed.

Dreams really need to get their sales assistants to tell people of the 30 day rule, although I haven’t fallen out of bed, we weren’t told that I’d have to land on the floor for a month if I did.

Next time I buy a bed I think I will take my nightdress a duvet and see if I can get four hours kip. Then I will agree with customer service.  But it is fun to think I would now be eligible to marry a Prince.

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