Bedtime Stories 1 - The (hotel) bed is lovely, cozy and neat...

My first few trips to the US were short, and were spent living in hotels. The hotels were all quite good, cozy rooms that faced the five foot pool in which a three forty pound (yeah, I talk weights in pounds too, since it makes you sound like a yanky!) mammoth would be splashing about displacing a zillion gallons of water, five pillows for my one head, wireless internet that you might even get going before you check out, microwave that'll warm your coffee overnight, an ironing board, that might warm your coffee faster than the microwave and a bed that'll support your back as firmly as Mamtha Bannerjee supports the party in power or Nauru supported the Gulf war. In all, a happy setup for a bachelor. Except for the bed that is, if you didn't get my joke! Believe me, I sunk in so much one night, I bounced off the belly of the 340 lb guy (yeah that confirmed it was a guy) in the room below!!!

But then once I mastered making cabbage kootu in the microwave and warming coffee on my laptop, my tongue started yearning for more. Meanwhile, I was here on a longer trip, and so the happy compromise between both was to rent an apartment.

An apartment was a challenge in many ways - after paying the deposit, I would've have enough money to buy a cake for my sixty second birthday - and that too because I decided not to have a cell phone. The deposit on that would have put that cake off by another fifteen years, considering current rate of inflation. All this deposit in the name of something called "Credit History", which along with a yankee accent was among two things I apparently lacked.

But look at the positive - I can atleast choose my bed! And make it as firm as my budget would allow! The first piece of news I received would've made me kiss even Mamta B. if she were in the vicinity (I'm no duffer, I know she's not here!) - the softer the mattress, the costlier it is - and vice versa I learnt!! Yohoooooo - they're gonna pay me to not bounce off that bald headed pot bellied guy!!!!

And so I started (re)searching on beds.
(contd.)