When I was a kid, I had a friend in the third grade named Eric. We both liked to draw pictures of Smokey & the Bandit, the trucks from Convoy and the General Lee on tabloid-sized sheets of construction paper. (With the exception of the Dukes of Hazzard, we had never seen these other shows; I knew what they looked like from the 4″x5″ HBO program guides my parents got in the mail.) One weekend Eric invited me over to his house to sleep over, and we spent our evening watching Bo and Luke outwit Roscoe over a huge bowl of popcorn and ice cream. When it came time to sleep, I found that Eric had bunk beds—a novelty for me—and that the mattresses had a peculiar crinkling sound to them. Every time I shifted the slightest bit, the mattress made a sound like somebody strangling a Hefty bag. Later I realized that they were plastic-covered, which was probably a smart idea for a boy of nine, but my mattress at home was soft, firm, and quiet. Eric snored, and his room smelled funny, and between the smell and the snoring and the crinkling, I was ready to go home the next day. We continued our artistic pursuits at school, but I didn’t sleep over there again.

When we were at the IKEA the other day inquiring about a return policy on our mattress, the lady behind the counter informed us that there’s no official try-out policy for mattresses, and lowered her voice to suggest that we leave the plastic on to prevent any “accidents.” My first thought was to tell the woman that we don’t piss the bed, but I realized later that she meant something else. Now that I think about it, I’m kind of offended by that.

Regardless, we tested it out last night. Once I got over the novelty of sleeping on the living room floor again, and settled in, it wasn’t too bad. Besides Sage pacing the perimeter and complaining (he doesn’t like plastic bags) and the crackling as I adjusted my position, I didn’t sleep too badly—my main complaint is that our comforter is very heavy and it made me sweat. It’s still too stiff for Jen, so we’re going to try the futon frame underneath tonight to see if that will help the situation.