Once Upon a Mattress

I woke up at 2 AM a couple months ago. Jack had crawled into bed with me and had an accident. He wears Pull-Ups to bed, but he's so tiny that sometimes they gape at the legs. Ergo, pee on my sheets. Ergo, pee on my egg crate foam mattress topper.

I stripped the sheets after changing Jack and redirecting him to his own bed. The mattress topper was ruined. There is no way to clean pee from foam rubber. I rolled it up and set it by the front door to go to the trash in the morning and got back into bed between clean sheets.

I couldn't fall asleep. I kept tossing and turning and flopping back and forth, the springs of my mattress groaning with each movement.

This is ridiculous, I thought at 5 AM.

I rolled over to get out of bed and felt metal beneath my body.

Just to be sure, I tried it again, this time rolling to the other side of the bed. Plain as day, I could make out the web of springs under the surface of the cheap-ass mattress which had served me well for the last three years.

I needed a new mattress.

I couldn't afford a new mattress. I had medical bills from Miles' broken arms, a car in desperate need of a timing belt and other obligations.

I piled six or seven fleece blankets atop my mattress and stretched the fitted sheet over them. It is bearable, but I can still feel the metal poking me from time to time.

Especially when I am on my hands and knees.

And the noise!

My upstairs neighbor, I'm sure, now thinks I have lots more sex than I actually do, because every time I roll over my mattress groans as if it's competing in the sex olympics. Would that it could. I worry about bringing someone home for fear that they'll injure themselves on my bed, and not in the good way.

I consistently wake up aching. I am 34 years old. I should not ache when I rise each morning. Okay, some mornings, yes. When there's a good reason for it.

I need a new mattress.

My friends had an idea.

Chelsea Girl, Juno Henry and O have been so kind as to point me in the direction of the Amazon Honor System. It's a truly ingenious system whereby readers can make donations to this blog by using Amazon.com's secure site. I've decided to raise money for a New Mattress for Madeline. Because, let's face it, if I'm going to write about sex, I need to be having some. And feeling rested enough to write about it post-coitally.

So I'm asking for your help.

Click on the little button up there and you can make a donation from $1 to $50 (You can, of course, donate more, you just need to repeat the process.).

You can even check on my little fundraiser's progress while you're there. Cool, huh?

But your kindness won't go unrewarded.

To show my appreciation, if you donate $20 or more I'll send you an audio file of me reading one of my favorite posts. If you donate $50 or more, tell me your favorite post and I'll read it, record it and send it off to your inbox with my thanks.

Come on, you know you want my voice whispering things like "I took his throbbing cock down my throat" into your headphones during your morning commute.