Remorse

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and some stupid thought will pop into my head making it impossible to fall asleep again. You know how it is, you remember that mean comment you made to a friend thirty years ago and it keeps stabbing you in the brain with guilt. You lay there reliving some stupid thing you did forty years ago, like sitting in an attic dividing up hits of LSD to sell, and it makes you break out into a cold sweat when you realize what the consequences could have been. Or how about that year you wasted chasing a straight guy, thinking if he only knew how much I want him he'd cave. Oh to have that precious time back.

That's not why I'm wide awake tonight. None of those things bother me right now. What bothers me, what is keeping me from sleeping a sound and satisfying sleep, is our mattress. I bought a new mattress, a king size one, so that Mark, Chandler, Sasha, and I could all sleep together without touching one another. So I could sleep all night without Mark's relentless, restless leg syndrome shaking me all night. The new mattress has accomplished all those things. It is as if I am all alone in this bed, and I love it, or I should love it. Instead I have sunk into what seems to be a bowl of mush. My back is aching, and I feel like I've been folded in half. I never knew a mattress could be this damn soft. Mark loves it, and the dogs love it, but I hate it. I like firm mattresses, so hard and tight you could bounce a quarter off it. Like a young person's ass. So why did I buy this mattress, why don't I just return it? Groupon. Mark talked me into buying the mattress on line from Groupon. It was half price, it was delivered for free, and two nice men removed the old mattress and set up the new one. The only problem is that I want to return it, and there is some fine print on the contract. "No refunds, no returns." Pretty stupid, right?

I love shopping on the internet. I have done all my Christmas shopping on line, and I buy most of our household items on line. But there is one thing I should have known. Never buy things on line that you should try on first, like shoes, pants, wigs for Alicia, and mattresses.