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Our bedroom mattress was shot.

Quite literally, it looked as if it had been shot.

It had holes throughout it from years and years of use. We had tried to add to its life by buying eggshell foam, adding old comforters and hoping in the process that one of the mattress spring wires did not decide in the middle of the night to revolt and stab us in the back.

We really should have bought one years ago but did not. It really didn't get that bad for sleeping until the past year or so.

In the 21-plus years of our married life, we've never had to buy a new mattress. That first year or so, my parents gave us a spare mattress with screw-in legs for us to use. My in-laws had another older bedroom set with an older, yet still usable, mattress after that. Later, one of my mother's friends was selling an old bed of hers with a mattress in pretty good shape for cheap, so we ended up with that one, too.

As we began researching what kind of mattress we wanted to invest in, I was quite surprised to find out that mattress experts say that you should buy a new mattress every seven years. Given how long we have been married, according to these mattress experts, we should now be on our fourth mattress. We are, sort of, even if when we received the other three mattresses that were past their original seven years.

Last week the time finally came for us to invest in a new mattress. With our big old conversion van, my husband and I took off to the other side of the county to Sam's Club.

Never mind my husband had not told me before this day that his air conditioner needed Freon. Never mind that we had to ride 30 minutes in lunch rush traffic on the western part of Wendover Avenue in Greensboro with the windows down to get there. Never mind that the air quality here in the Triad was about as bad as it could get due to a wildfire near the coast that particular day.

The ride was hot and sticky, and I could not breathe without going into a coughing fit. Before making the whole trip home again, we stopped off at Burger King to get something to eat and to cool off and breathe good air. I started coughing and gagging again because of the air while getting back into the van.

Arriving home, with a spring in our step, we quickly got the mattress inside and then went our separate ways. My husband needed to scoot to work, dropping my son off at my mother's house along the way. I had my daughter to pick up from work.

After a long afternoon of more errands, while popping Halls cough drops all day, I finally found my way home to begin washing the new bedding I had treated us to that would go along with our new mattress.

My son helped me get the old mattress down the hall. He worked with me to get the new mattress to the bedroom. I climbed up on top of our new mattress. Climbing is not something you did to get into our old mattress. The old mattress would kind of just grab you and suck you in, holding you there until you somehow found your way to grab hold of something nearby as you hoisted yourself out again.

Climbing on the new mattress, it felt like we were climbing into a loft. I kind of think we need stairs for it. I know I might at least need a guard rail like we put on our kids' beds when they were little. One wrong move and I will fall three or four feet to the ground now. It's a long way down.

There is no way Bayley, our beloved cocker spaniel, can jump up here on the bed now. I think he might have been offended just a bit when the kids and I all were sitting up here, and I said, "We're on a boat, Bayley, and you're the shark."

When my husband arrived home, Bayley had some choice words about the whole thing. Bayley barked, would look at me and the bed and then bark some more, trying to express to my husband some particular distress. I really think he was tattling on me for calling him a shark. Does he not respect the hand that feeds him or what?

At 2 a.m., our comforter was still drying, and somewhere in there my husband and I were just lying in our new mattress about to fall asleep. It was so comfortable, and we were being lulled into sleep by the swish-swish of the ceiling fan. We decided to just grab another blanket for the night in order to go on to sleep. It had been a long, hot day.

I look forward to making the bed up because the comforter will actually fit now without parts of it hanging off the bed onto the floor. I look forward to many good nights' sleep in this bed. When I bought new bedding for the new mattress, I bought them in "chocolate." Yes, sheets are no longer just plain brown, or dark brown. My sheets are now chocolate. Chocolate sheets should be good for some sweet dreams, don't you think?

Linda Vestal is a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend living in Gibsonville. Contact her with comments or story ideas at lindavestal@triad.rr.com.