once upon a mattress

Mom's furniture arrived a few weeks ago, and although I have not yet had much time to deal with it I am glad it's here. It is beautiful. It is Mom. I'm happy that it is in my home.

A couple of weeks ago, expecting dinner (not overnight) guests but still wanting the room to have some semblance of presentablity, my husband and I went to the Ashley Furniture HomeStore in our area and selected a full size Simmons mattress set to be delivered the following week; too late for our guests but no one, we were assured, would have been able to deliver earlier.

When the mattress set arrived, the delivery guys tossed the box spring and the mattress onto the bed frame. And my lovely Heywood Wakefield headboard, polished over a half a century to a glossy amber hue, promptly disappeared.

*

It seems that the sleek, low-slung furniture of the 20th century was not designed to accommodate the over-sized, plumped-up lushness of the 21st. My husband came back after the deliverymen left to find me staring at 23" of bedding looming, in all it's glorious plushness astride a 21" frame. We burst out laughing.

*

We're not laughing anymore.

*

When we tried to return the set, we were told by the salesman that they could exchange the box for a lower platform, which would reduce the height by a possible 3". No mention of additional charges were made. It was a reasonable solution to a problem, which after all, had been our mistake.

Then the salesman said, "We can't take it back. It isn't store policy. It's the law."

I should have kept my mouth shut. I could have kept my mouth shut. But something happens when people lie to me. I have little control over it; I swear it's physiological ~ the hairs on my neck stand on end, the blood rushes to my face, my heart starts pounding and my breath gets shallow. It has nothing to do with the nature of the lie, it's relative importance to me, my life or the person telling it ~ I don't even have to know for sure that it's a lie, just a vague suspicion that it is. Something in my brain clicks off and I see red. And then I don't have the sense to leave it alone.

"Well, that's not true," I said. Mildly, I thought. It was just a statement of fact.

The salesman, Ron, who had seemed so congenial a few days ago, immediately went on the offensive.

*

"So now you just want to return it? Now you just want your money back?"

"Well, now...yeah. All of a sudden I feel like I have no other options. O.K. I guess that is what I want." I looked at Turk. He nodded. From a safe distance.

"Well, we can't do that. I told you. It's against the law. You don't believe me? I'll let you talk to one of the owners." He strode angrily to the front of the store. "Wait here," he said.

The co-owner, who seemed affable enough, introduced himself as Jon and listened politely to our story. We told him that we understood store policy (printed on the receipt) indicated that there was a 15% restocking fee charged for returns and that we knew we would lose the delivery charge, but that we didn't want the set and that we didn't understand how this had gone so far as to be confrontational. He said that his customer service person, who was not on site, would call us the next day with a list of options. He was friendly but firm.

"We can't take it back," he said. "I can't even have it on the premises. It's against the law. It's not worth my losing my business license over."

*

We left the store.