Air Mattresses

My number one fear when staying at someone's house is that he unrolls an air mattress for me. There's no saving grace there. I just know there's a spinal cord in the shape of a cursive 'F' waiting on me in the morning. There simply isn't enough food in the fridge to balance out that trade off. Just give me a pillow and the bath tub, and I'll be good.

I almost feel bad not liking air mattresses. At the very least, when offered in an overnight stay, it's a token of hospitality -- which I appreciate, don't get me wrong. I'm not ungrateful, just uncomfortable. See, the thing is, you know when you're at your friend's place, and he says, "Make yourself at home"? Well, sleeping on an air mattress is the complete opposite of making myself at home. I don't own an air mattress. I don't enjoy an air mattress. I can't sleep on an air mattress. I'm not at home when I'm on an air mattress. Matter of fact, I feel closer to Vietnamese torture barracks on an air mattress than I do to home. Nothing about an air mattress says, "Home sweet home."

Ever taken a good look at the packaging an air mattress comes in? Isn't there always a picture of someone laying on that air mattress, turned on her side, hands pressed together and tucked underneath her cheek, and smiling away in her sleep? Advertising has never been so false. What's really happening in that picture is something totally different. You're actually witnessing a human being hating herself. Right there in front of you, a single moment of bitterness and self-abhorrence locked in time forever by a UPC-emblazoned photograph.

The people who say taking an air mattress on a camping trip isn't really "roughing it" have obviously never slept on one. You're probably more of a pussy if you slept naked on a gravel floor and a single pine cone in a cave with a bear family.

So far we've tried two of the four elements in our mattresses: water and air. For those scoring at home, that makes it 0 for 2. Can't say earth would be all that comfortable, though a stitched-up rectangle of soil would certainly provide more firmness than water or air underneath those vertebrae. And let's just hope Craftmatic never explores fire.