update: bed

I haven't been sleeping well with my old mattress on the floor, so I decided the time had come to find a new one. The problem is that I like soft, and soft doesn't come cheap.

After much debating between a good deal on a really expensive bed (so now it's just expensive) and a extremely expensive bed (which will be more comfortable long term), I went to Mattress Firm to buy the cheaper one.

But the woman who was supposed to be holding it for me wasn't there. The guy who was said he couldn't find any evidence of a hold or even that mattress at that price.

Annoyed, I went back to pondering the wonderful, big-money sleep number bed. I'd almost decided to get it, when — at the suggestion of a co-worker who'd gotten her mattress at the same place —— I called for one last check.

I got the woman I'd worked with before. She had the mattress on hold for me still. The man I spoke with, it seams, treats his own customers right, but not hers. This isn't the first time that he couldn't find something that she had placed on hold. (I really didn't care to hear about their internal squabbles and politics, but at least my bed was still there.)

So, I had to redecide to recommit to buying this bed. I did, but not happily. I was kind of liking the excuse to go and buy the expensive mattress, and I didn't want the dream to die. But I agreed to buy the cheaper one. Then —— I love how rationalization works —— I figured that, if I still really wanted that sleep number bed in a few years, I could get it (because, hopefully, I won't be as strapped for cash) and make the other bed into a guest bed.

This solution automatically gave me a 75 percent level of contentment with my decision. I expect this number to fluctuate a bit over the next week or so, but to level out at about 80 percent.

Had I gone the other way, I could have rationalized myself to a similar contentment level with my decision to spend twice as much money. (In the long run it's cheaper to buy the terrificffic mattress now then to buy another that you'll only have to replace at an additional cost.)