Only YOU can help save my marriage.

Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but probably not far off. Spousal Unit and I are at a bit of a standstill.

It's about a mattress.

Here's the background:

For the 12 years of our marriage, and the 1 year of living in sin before that, Spousal Unit and I have slept on a futon. The first one we had was free, so that seemed like a no brainer. It sat on the floor directly. That got a bit cold, so I think we bought a very cheap low frame at a garage sale. A few months later, I found a home-made bed frame in a dumpster at work (it was a construction dumpster, not a garbage dumpster, and technically the frame was next to the dumpster, but it's so much more dramatic to say that it was in the dumpster.) I brought it home, did a little construction, and presto-chango we had a raised bed. Over the years, we've cut it down to size, and added a backrest, and now I'm contemplating nifty decorative balls for the end of the posts...but I digress. Since we found the dumpster bed, we've had 2 different new futons. We liked them. They were firm, solid, and cheap. And, as an added bonus, when Spousal Unit rolls over in the night, I'm not flung 6' into the air by spring recoil. It was good.

But, you know, what is good for you when you're 25 just isn't quite as good for you when you're 35. My back hurts. My neck hurts. I can't feel the toes on my right foot. (Yep. Seen a doctor & physical therapist. L-5 disk is pressing on my nerves somewhere in there.) I'm sick of rolling toward the center of the bed if I face right, and having to hang on for dear life to the high outer edge as I sleep if I face left. Spousal Unit agrees. It's time for a new mattress. (He's not quite willing to give up on the dumpster bed frame and I'm not sure I am either. It's perfectly serviceable, really.)

So, if we both agree, where's the marriage destroying crisis?

Dinero, dinero, dinero. OH, and my Dad is coming to visit for about 10 days this Friday. Why does this matter? Well, in our house currently, we have 2 futons -- and that's it. One on our dumpster bed and one on the couch in the living room. (which was also free -- a friend was moving and couldn't take it with him... sensing a theme, here?) I don't want my Dad to sleep in the living room for a week. For chrissakes, the man's over 60. He should be able to have some privacy. Plus, the living room in the new site of my morning work corner, where I sit and do my first morning's writing each day. I'm sure he's not interested in waking up every morning to the sound of computer keys while on his vacation.

So, as far as I can see it, there are 2 options for solving our problem: (And, here they are, presented in a very clear, unbiased and scrupulously honest way:)

Option 1: Go and buy a freaking mattress. Move the futon into my study, hence giving my Dad a private place to sleep. (We have another nice frame for it leftover from the days that SU and I lived apart and each needed a bed.)

Option 2: Move the futon from the living room couch into the study. Move the frame from the living room futon into the garage. Move the 20-year-old made-from-a-kit loveseat with the ass-destroying center post it into the living room and warn everyone who attempts to sit there to lower themselves very, very carefully.

Pros/Cons

Option 1:
Pros: We have a new bed now instead of 3 months from now when we'd planned to buy one. We don't have to rearrange every room in the house. No heavy lifting on my part is involved. (Those nice mattress mover folk will have to do that.) Oh, and in two weeks when my Sister-In-Law visits with her roommate, they'll each have a place to sleep that's a real bed.

Cons: It will add between $800-$1000 to our already awe-inducing and increasingly monstrous credit debt, depending on which stupid mattress we buy. (Which, don't even get me started. What a fucking crock of evil shit it is that mattress companies tweak the name of each bloody mattress for each damned store they send it to so that it completely and utterly destroys any attempt that you, the customer, might make to comparison shop.)

Option 2:
Pros: It doesn't cost us anything. We get out of debt faster. We get more time to bash our heads against the utter impossibility of choosing a stupid incomparable mattress. Do we want The Aruba? The Antigua? The Sleeperpedic? The Highlander? The Exeter? The Crown Queen Luxury European Deluxe Pillow Foam Back Support Optimator?

Cons: We pretty much have to move every freaking item of furniture in our house. We still have to sleep on the futon (which, did I mention is 6 years old now?). Two weeks from now, we'll have to the whole rearranging thing all over again, and then still have a guest have to sleep on a regular couch that doesn't in any way resemble a bed. (But not on the ass-destroying love seat, thankfully.)

So, sweet readers, help us solve our problem. I've added a handy-dandy little poll at the sidebar. Vote early, vote often!! Save My Marriage!

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Postscript:

For those of you longing for a report on Dissertation Progress:
I had a little less productive of a day yesterday, not surprising given the productivity of Sunday. I did get stuff done, so I'm moving along -- and I still feel pretty good about the introduction and am moving forward today.

For those of you longing for a deeply personal, psychoanalytic post:
Perhaps I'm fixating on this mattress thing because this will be the most time I've spent with my Dad since I was in high school and so I want everything to be comfortable for him and for us. Damn those personal, psychoanalytic insights that make what I thought was a perfectly logical and reasonable head-based argument turn out to be neither reasonable nor logical. Spousal Unit will love this one. He'll tell me that Option 2 is absolutely necessary so that I can "get over my issues." Damn. I hate when that happens.