Buying a mattress is not restful

Hello everyone, 

I thought I was doing pretty well at integrating back into normal life after months on the road. I'm unpacking the boxes I've stashed away in my closet, buying groceries, taking semi-regular showers. It's a peach. Until I tried to buy a mattress. Apparently, you can't sell a mattress unless your ad is in all caps and has more exclamation marks than a Trump rage tweet. Like, don't even bother showing up if your ad says something like "Hey, we've got good mattresses at fair prices. No, it has to yell about DIRECT FROM THE FACTORY PRICES!!! and ONCE IN A LIFETIME SAVINGS!!!! with a slightly threatening vibe that YOU CAN'T MISS THIS SALE!!!!!! Which is another point. It's impossible to know what the regular price of a mattress is. That's not a thing, I believe. I went to a bunch of places and I don't think I ever saw a regular price. Every single one had a price, with a line through it, and a lower price written beneath it. I tried to get out of a Sleep Country store without buying something, but at one point in the ordeal was banking on my ability to wrestle away from the salesman to do so. He offered me an early Black Friday deal, then a mismatch discount, then a payment plan, then a layaway option, and when I still said no, a price match guarantee. He told me they sell the most mattresses and so have the best deals. I had to head fake him with an organic cotton bed cover and bolt for the door. In the end, I bought a decent mattress that may have been 60% off, or was always priced as such and they just had an imaginary number as the original price. And I was done with the whole process. Just kidding! I found a better deal online from the same store and drove back to switch it out for that one. The manager was giving me a dirty look as she did the 5 minutes of typing it took to arrange this, all while I stood next to a big sign that said "No Exchanges on Black Friday." Yeah, not sorry. It was their own damn flyer. Wes 

Photos 

Said mattress and new bed frame in original and LL Bean mode.