I purchased my current mattress after the break up of my marriage. It was not supposed to be my forever mattress, only my transition mattress. After eight years and even more lumpy spots, it had to go!
After weeks of procrastination, I went shopping. The first few stores were not doing it for me. In each, I was met by a sales associate who appeared in front of me as if dropped by a pneumatic tube associate dispensing system activated by opening the door of the store. With each salesperson came a big toothy grin and a clipboard with sale flyers, credit applications and, no doubt, a list of everything the manager wanted the staff to sell. The associates in each store stayed in close formation, chatting me up, looking for personal details to bond with me so I would make a purchase, preferably on my new store credit card. The only thing they needed to know was that I was shopping for a mattress, I was there to flop, lay still and sort through the selection on my back.
The last store was different. I slipped into the vast showroom unnoticed by the staff. Perhaps their pneumatic associate delivery tube system was down. The last time I was here, the mattresses were way in the back of the building, so that is where I headed, weaving through the confusing galleries of bedrooms, dining rooms, leather recliners, and couches. When I finally arrived in the back, I was dismayed to find the former mattress gallery full of beach house offerings. “Wicker (shuddering), so much wicker!”
I plotted my escape from the store. Did they stop selling mattresses? To find that answer I would need to talk to an associate. No, it was better to locate a way out as stealthily as possible.
As I weaved my way out it happened, a desk caught my eye. I wanted a new writing table. It had to be hardwood, at least 60 inches wide, and a close match for the furniture in my bedroom. As I was examining it, a strange feeling came over me, perhaps a feeling a wildebeest experiences when they sense a lion, with a clipboard, sizing them up. I moved away, picking my route through the maze of galleries, increasing my pace as I went. I was using my peripheral vision to track the predator associate as I moved ever closer to the front door.
I moved left and stumbled on the entrance to the mattress gallery. I darted around a half wall and there, in front of me, a sea of mattresses. I flopped on the first one. Wow, not too firm, not too soft. The lioness approached, but the half wall obstructed its view. She moved off slowly. There were more wildebeest to be had.
I checked out the selection and returned to the first mattress I had tried during my escape. We have a winner! Now I need to find an associate. They are never around when you need them!
This is a blog post written for a class, Blog Writing I, I am taking with Gotham Writers Workshop.
When I arrive, you can almost sense that the cat is looking at me and thinking “Back for more, little man?”. She still presents herself to be petted. I always ignore her. She sometimes pays me back for the slight by nipping at me. While I am there, Jeanne will close the cat out of the bedrooms. Those rooms are Misty’s favorite place to sleep at night after napping all day. My nemesis does not appreciate the appropriation of sleeping spots by the interloper from Virginia.
On the last two trips, she has violated our truce by urinating first near and then on my shoes after I came back from walking the dog. A small rivulet creeping away from the stain on top of the slip-on and running along the grout in the front hall tile. Nearby, she sat on the stairs, cleaning her fur and occasionally glancing in my direction. I think she is throwing down the gauntlet. I have challenged Misty to a final battle in the marsh along the Herb River behind Jeanne’s house. It is still in doubt which one of us would emerge victorious after such a clash.
The hobby became possible May 2, 2000, when the government turned off “
snakes. Finally, you need to stick to the trail until you get within about 200 feet of the cache location. At the parking area, you will be about 1/3 of a mile from the target geocache. That is a straight line reading. You will not be able to do a straight line land navigation quickly. Stick to the trail. I know that switchbacks are a pain, but there are a few elevation changes and water obstacles to cross. Two of those water obstacles do not have bridges. They are not difficult to handle. If you stick to the trail you will come on a geocache, Eclipsed in the Forest (GC7B2ZG), about halfway to Modoc Stash. The hike to the old geocache is about 1.1 miles. One last point, I marked a waypoint where my Jeep was parked. While I used the trail markings, I like to know the distance to the car on the way out.
Mission 22
After circling the first and second levels for a few minutes, I finally found someone pulling out of a spot. Once in the parking space, I mindlessly pulled out my phone and snapped a photo of the closest location sign to where my Jeep sat waiting for me. I heard a small laugh behind me. When I turned around a woman, walking in the same direction as I, looked at me and smiled. I was busted getting my photographic waypoint before heading for my outpatient procedure. “That is actually a good idea,” she said. We chatted as we headed to the elevator about the joys of the times when we had not remembered where we parked. It is easy enough to do in some of the larger parking lots or multiple story parking structures that have become ubiquitous in modern life.
