A good night’s sleep is a godsend, there is no denying that. In our youth, all we have to do is shut our eyes. The posture does not matter, the noise around is immaterial and any bed, cot, sofa, bench, firm ground, in fact, any flat surface is good enough … of lulling us to sound sleep, that is.
But somewhere along the way, when niggling backache makes its presence felt, the mattress is declared the culprit and its softness or hardness becomes the cause of the problem. It is held responsible for our lack of sleep and our quest for finding the perfect mattress begins.
We explore all the mattresses in the market and what starts off as natural curiosity quickly turns into a full-fledged investigation because the sheer variety of the available product is awe-inspiring. From spring to foam and from water to air, the list is endless. There are subdivisions and further specialised demarcations to those, too.
The names are exceedingly alluring. The four basic types are called: open spring – where the arrangement is in rows and connected with a thick spiral wire; pocket spring – which is housed in individual cloth pockets, allowing them to work independently; latex foam – springs back to its original shape when you get up; and memory foam – does not retain its original form but maintains an imprint of your body contour.
Then there are the mattress toppers. These are, as the term suggests, somewhat like a layer of extra toppings on a pizza. But here it does not signify an enhancement of the tastebuds but is used for enhancing the mattress – like down feather ones (made from the soft plume of geese or ducks), wool toppers (that are resistant to bed bugs and are manufactured from lamb’s fleece), and egg crate toppers (that literally look like a large but empty tray of eggs).
Also, any query about a mattress is followed by filling of quiz forms with inquisitive questions like, do you sleep on your back, side or stomach? Do you toss and turn around in your sleep? Furthermore, do you get too hot or too cold while sleeping? And, does your partner move around in bed and wake you up? I mean, such intricate details about a person’s life are so confounding that very often the buyers themselves are totally clueless about it.
Many suggestions are additionally offered, for free. The best is that a pillow should be taken from home when going mattress shopping. All that is very well but what will the other shoppers think is the overwhelming concern. Also, what happens if one gets mistaken for a shoplifter is the other worry.
However, everything is disclosed soon enough because our uneven sleep pattern has us running to the nearest mattress store. Concealed in the crowded by lanes of Torres Vedras, the place is discovered by sheer chance.
“Olá, senhora,” the salesman’s voice booms at me.
“Bom dia,” I answer.
“You want to buy a mattress?” he asks.
“Yes,” says my husband.
“You together?” he inquires.
We nod in response.
“Ok, in which position do you sleep?” he questions.
“I sleep on my back, he sleeps on his side,” I say.
“She sleeps on her side, I sleep on my back,” my spouse says.
“Are you married?” he asks exasperatedly.
“Yes,” we chorus.
His face loses all expression.
“To each other,” we confirm.
“Time for a compatibility quiz,” he announces firmly steering us towards the pillow rack.
By Nickunj Malik
|| features@portugalresident.com
Nickunj Malik’s journalistic career began when she walked into the office of Khaleej Times newspaper in Dubai thirty-one years ago and got the job. Since then, her articles have appeared in various newspapers all over the world. She now resides in Portugal and is married to a banker who loves numbers more than words.
