There are certain things that a single woman might have to do that would be WAY better to do with a man. Like shopping for a new mattress.
But, alas, until Mr. Right shows up, I get to enjoy awkward tasks like this one by my lonesome.
I need a new bed. I’m moving and had been borrowing one, so I need to buy the whole thing – mattress, box spring, frame, the actual bed, too. Ugh. A necessary evil. However, I DO prefer a bed to sleeping on the floor and I’m kinda excited to make my first ever grown up mattress purchase.
Not really knowing how or where to get started or more importantly, how to buy the right one, I started looking online. I also looked at IKEA on a first date. I asked my friends on Facebook.
Temperpedic. Sleep numbers. Memory foam. Memory foam with gel. Pillowtop. Body forming. Firm, extra firm, extra soft. And on and on.
Mattress shopping is freaking overwhelming! There are just as many choices of different types of mattresses as there are single men in Los Angeles, I swear.
So one of my gfs tells me to Yelp this place near me and go check it out. It’s close by, and since I cancelled my date tonight because a bed is kinda more important right now, I made my way over to the mattress store.
It’s Sunday, it’s in the evening, and about an hour before closing. I walk in and there’s just one guy there.
Oh, great. It’s me, this dude, and a ton of beds that I’m assuming I’m going to have to lay on for him. That’s not awkward at all.
He’s my age, super friendly and turns red in the face during moments when we talk.
He’s very helpful and starts telling me how the industry has changed over the years and how old, metal coils are out and how new fancy solutions are in. He’s showing me an example of a bed cut out, fancy springs and all.
Cool. I’m learning something. But I knew the weird part was coming next.
He asks a few more questions and then says what I was dreading.
He points to the bed we’re standing next to and I awkwardly get on the bed and lay down. First on my back, then I switch over to my side.
I can’t concentrate on what it feels like because it feels like I’m a single woman in a huge mattress store with a dude watching me lay on a bed! I totally felt safe because the whole front of the store was windows, but still. Am I wrong to feel some sort of sexual tension in this situation?
It was weird. He walks a few beds over to his desk to grab his drink while I lay there all awkward. He’s still talking casually about the differences and yada yada this and that, but I think he was trying to give me space to make it a bit less awkward.
Imagine making eye contact with a guy while laying in bed and you’ve only known him for ten minutes. Weird!
But after that one, he had me move to the next. And so on and so on. This went on for about 20 minutes, while we narrowed down what I was loving or not loving so much.
He did really know his stuff.
Most of the awkwardness had faded by this point, and thank goodness I’m a pretty confident chick, otherwise I don’t know what I would have done. My hourglass shape is quite the hourglass when flipped on its side, laying down. Add that to him and I locking eyes while he checks out my hips, spine and posture to make sure I’m aligned…yeah, not awkward at all. I was just hoping I left my bedroom eyes Mr. Armani saw the other day at home! Hopefully the bright florescent store lights didn’t make my baby blues at all interesting.
In the end, I think I figure out what I want and he tells me he’ll give me an awesome deal on it. We talk a bit more about the price, manufacturer, how and where they make it, when it’d be delivered, etc, then he hands me his card, shakes my hand… No, wait, correction, he HOLDS my hand for an extra long second, and asks my name. I give it to him, grateful he didn’t know it during that whole process cuz that would have made things reallllly personal.
He thanks me for coming in and for “keeping him company” on such a lonely Sunday night. He’s laughing, of course, and it’s cute.
I thank him for his help and tell him I’ll give him a call to figure everything out this week.
Oy. Single girl shenanigans, indeed.