STRANGER THAN FICTION: SWEET DREAMS MADE ON BRAND-NEW MATTRESSES

It was time to admit that we'd broken down our mattress.

Sure, I'd like to think that only a passionate marriage could cause a mattress purchased in the fall of 1995 to be broken down by the fall of 1998, but that's just not true.

That mattress was a gift from my in-laws. My mother-in-law tried to talk us into a queen size in a good brand, but we felt guilty asking a relative who'd already been so generous to spend that much more money. We took a bottom-of-the-line double.

Needless to say, women of size and cheap mattresses don't mesh. I'd always suspected that from my own experience, but it was confirmed a few months ago on Sally Jesse Raphael. She had on women whose husbands think they're too fat.

"Dang, woman!" one husband said. "You done broke down the brand-new mattress we just bought a coupla months ago!"

"That mattress was just cheap!" she said.

But soul sister, we both know the truth. Even a cheap mattress would have lasted longer if it'd been Kate Moss putting her bony butt on it instead of one of us. And that double was making The Other Half and me a little too close for comfort -- we were ready for a queen.

So we had to do something. We gathered up information on buying bedding and headed for the furniture stores.

Here's what the experts have to say about mattress purchasing: Don't pay the price marked. Don't buy at the first place you go. Don't be embarrassed to lie down on the mattress, even if it's in the middle of a store full of people.

The last one wasn't a problem. Maybe we didn't get enough sleep the night before, since we had to try and rest on our old, broken down, squeaky mattress.

"Go ahead and lie down on it," said the first salesman. "You don't sit on your bed, you sleep in it."

We followed his orders. It was a pillow top model -- the kind you allegedly can drop a bowling ball on and not disturb pins at the other end.

"Come back in an hour," I said.

But, this place being a major furniture vendor, the guy wouldn't budge on price. Wouldn't throw in delivery, wouldn't throw in the frame, nothing.

Plus, he was one of those slick salesmen who just get on your nerves. You know the type.

"Now here you've got your 260DX deluxe models. It's got your extra pillowing, your individually wrapped coils, your turbo-boosted box springs. You could get the cheaper model, but don't you deserve the queen of mattresses? Get it -- the QUEEN of mattresses?"

Got it.

We went to the dilapidated looking furniture store across the street. We weren't going to pay too much for our mattress, darn it!

A little old man walked up. Sure, Grandpa, just TRY and look so cute that we won't dicker.

"Uh, like, do we really have to pay full price on this mattress, 'cause we don't have much money," I said.

So much for my tough stance.

"Tell you what," he said. "I'll throw in the frame, throw in the delivery and take six months same as cash."

"Deal."

Monday night was our first spent on our new bed. I dreamed that I was floating on air, watching the people down below point up at me in admiration.

And The Other Half was able to get far enough away from me that he wasn't deafened by my snoring.

Life is good.

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer for the Southeast Missourian who now lives in Pensacola, Fla.