I just spent the last 45 minutes wrestling with my mattress. With my mattress, not on my mattress. I got to this low point in my life when I decided to replace our worn-out mattress cover.  When we bought it seven years ago, we were told that it would withstand a nuclear bombing but, just in case we exposed it to something more lethal, it also came with a lifetime guarantee. All we had to do was bring it back and get a new one, free of charge, as often as we liked. The same store also guaranteed our mattress for 25 years. When I asked for a hard copy of the warranty, I was told that I didn’t need one because they had a record of it in their database. Shortly after they delivered our mattress and mattress cover, they went out of business.

So, this morning, I went to the local big box store that sends daily coupons through the mail. I found a mattress cover that made big promises, but it also came with a big price. I opted for the most inexpensive mattress cover, rationalizing that all of them were probably the same. The only differences between them were the probably-false claims printed on the inserts. Now I know that there’s another difference—one type gets put on by pulling its stretchy sides down each side of the mattress; the other kind gets put on by inserting your entire mattress into it, envelope-style. Of course I had purchased the latter type.

At this point, I should have just taken it back. Our mattress is a pillow-top and weighs more than I can lift. It’s also a queen-size, so it’s hard to maneuver. However, I reasoned, if I were to return it, I would have to refold the thing along its original creases, which is no easy feat. I decided, instead, to put it on—by myself. I could have asked my husband for help, but then I would have had to endure his reaction when he realized that we had to shove our very-large mattress into an enormous zippered pillow case.

It wasn’t an easy task. I had to wrestle the mattress off the bed and stand it on its side and put part of the case on, then lie the mattress back down and wriggle both sides of it down as far as I could, then stand it up again and pull it farther down, then lie it down again and resume wriggling. This process was repeated a number of times until the whole mattress was finally covered. The last step was to pull the zippered parts together so that I could engage the zipper. This was when I heard ripping. The mattress cover was officially mine at this point; the store wouldn’t take it back now. I got the zipper together and pulled it up by the toggle. Just as I got to the end, the toggle broke off in my hand. The mattress cover was on, and it would never be able to come off. Ever. It was now a part of the mattress.

So, I got into the car, went back to the store and bought the more expensive, slide-on mattress cover to protect the pillow-case mattress cover that had just become part of the bed.

My husband knows nothing of this. Let’s keep it that way.