Prior to heading to the house last weekend, Amanda and I made the mandatory stop at Wal-Mart for miscellaneous household items. I can't justify spending $10 on salt and pepper shakers or $50 for bathroom garbage bins at Crate & Barrel, sorry.
In the checkout line, we realized that we had nothing to sleep on yet and retreated back to the aisles in search of an air mattress. On our way, we found an employee and asked her help in navigating the maze that is Wal-Mart. Right away, she demonstrated an unusual passion for air mattresses.
"Oh, yes!" she said through a smile, exposing some tar-black bottom teeth. "The air mattresses can be found in both the outdoors and home furnishing sections. Really, I find the home furnishing ones last longer. I had to return the ones I bought in the outdoors section three or four times before I found the good ones in home furnishings."
"Uh, ok," I replied.
We followed her back to the home furnishing aisle. She had the swagger and shape of Roseanne Barr and followed all the beauty techniques of Cosmopolitan circa 1985. We stopped in front of a small section of air mattresses.
"Which one do you have?" Amanda asked.
"I have this one because it sits higher than the other ones," she replied, pointing to the most expensive, $95 double-high queen mattress.
"That's great. I think we'll just take some time looking at these," I said, offering the air mattress queen honorable discharge.
"Well, just stick to these," she said in departure. "The outdoor air mattresses are for camping and occasional use, but if you use an air mattress as your everyday bed like I do, then I'd go with one of these."
With that, the air mattress queen skipped away leaving Amanda and me in disbelief.
We picked up the $75 air mattress (Nor will I spend $95 for an air mattress at Wal-Mart) and went home to unpack and inflate.
That night, we felt pretty darn fortunate that our air mattress was a temporary fix and hoped the air mattress queen was resting comfortably on her royal, double-high air mattress.