Research!!! This word, I know, is associated with long nights of nightmarish studying in plausibly haunted libraries for all the PhD wannabies and PhD-i-did-its of the world. What I had to do in the name of this word, to locate my dream mattress, might seem like fun in comparison. It's $%*# on the face of research, they may say. "Blasphemy", the researchers of the world may shout out - for calling what I did research. But believe me, all ye researchers, all ye PhD-wannabies, all ye PhD-i-did-its, my work is no less than yours!!!
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Where I come from, a bed is a bed is a bed. Often, it's not even a bed, it's just a cool hard floor. Maybe even the shade of a tree. At best, the bed becomes a bed. It takes form. The form of four legs supporting a frame. A plank of plywood on this frame. A mattress on it, and a bed sheet covering the mattress. And that's it, you're ready to retire. Life is cool and simple.
The mattress is no more complicated. You either have a lumpy cotton mattress for Rs.X or you have a branded mattress available for Rs.47.3X (multiplied by the INR-USD exchange rate to make it sound it's from the US). That makes your choice easy too, and you're ready to sleep.
Here....phew!!! The bed is a 'concept'. You first have to pick up the phrases. Then you have understand what they mean. Then you have to be able to put those together into meaningful phrases. And then you have to face the smiling, what're-you-doing-here-look-on-his-face mattress salesman (more on them later). IN THAT ORDER.
I was a novice. I didn't know this order. I thought the best way to buy a bed was to visit a store that sold those. I went to one. The salesman smiled. I asked for a bed. He showed me he was a mechanical engineer with imagination (Spoke of springs, stress, patterns and packaging). I didn't catch the connection and came back home.
In irritation switched on the television box. Man! That's man's best friend!!!! I switch it on, and immediately, there's an ad for a mattress!!! A fat guy and a fat girl come and ask "Why buy a mattress anywhere else?" (I could write a blog on ads in the US, but that's another story). I'm ok buying from them. I'm ok buying from anyone!!! Luckily the ad shows a phone number. This time I don't want the ignominy of showing the world my face, which is not that of a mechanical engineer, so I call them up.
A lady picks it up. I put on my sexiest sweetest bestest voice and tell her I don't know what I need to buy a mattress. She talks something about money. I explain to her that big as that issue is, the bigger one is that I didn't understand the 'concept' behind the bed. I tell her that the last time I'd gone to buy a bed, the guy had spoken of components I thought went into an aeroplane. She probably thinks I'm acting smart and calls a guy (her boyfriend?), whose 'burliness' is audible at this end of the wire! "Hoouuwwww may I haaallpppp you???" he asks in a bury-friendly voice. (OK, not boyfriend, pissed boyfriends won't go about helping me! My sexy voice was working!) I tell him I didn't understand the concept of a mattress and it's components.
There's a theory that says that fat people have more patience than thinner ones (different issue that you have a bigger problem to tackle, literally, when they run out of it) .The 'burlyness' of his voice indicated a rotundity of figure, and his patience indicated the truth in the theory. That lady might've been slim, but this guy had the patience of a thousand slim ladies, and at the end of it, I was definitely wiser!
I came to know that a bed, in all its complexity, can be broken down into three distinct pieces that one has to acquire. A mattress, a frame, and something called a box-spring (oh damn, that bastard wasn't a mechanical engineer who designed planes afterall!!!). He told me that the frame can be unscrewed into further components, or can be taken as a whole. That the frame had to be arranged in place and locked with pegs. Then I had to place the box spring on it, so that the spring would make me bounce. And then you put a mattress on the box spring so that the bouncing becomes softer. Oh yeah, then there are varieties in mattresses from double pillow top to break your backs, but from what he said my affordability restricted my choice to a tenth of a percentile of the variety available. So far so good. Things can get more complicated when the mechanical engineers play with permutations, and put pillow tops on box springs but thankfully budget rendered those combinations immaterial too!
He also explained something about what goes over the mattress - half a dozen things - spreads, sheets, quilts, yada yada yada (I like this more than etc). When he spoke of buying skirts for the bed, and said something about a sham, I decided it was over me, and I'd go to Walmart and buy that 'package'. That's another day's story! For now, I had mastered the concept!!! I was good to go!!!!....
(contd....)
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