Roasting on a SleepNumber Bed

We went on a road trip this weekend, my daughter and I. She had to make a fast trip to Baltimore to meet with a young representative of an overseas program she wants to do next year.

"I'm in!" I announced. "Road trip."

"Really? I didn't want to ask..."

"Absolutely." I realized I'd assumed she'd welcome the company, then made sure she really was willing to have me tag along. She was.

I woke Saturday morning to her calling outside the window; she'd woken at five, drove the two hours to our house and arrived before I was up.

"I'm so sorry! I thought you'd be up!"

I had no idea how bleary I am when I'm woken from a sound sleep. It hasn't happened in a long time. It took three cups of coffee to make the cylinders click into place, but they did and I was ready.

The drive down was easy, though it took about five hours. We got there early and checked into our hotel.

"They've got sleep number beds," I told her. "This should be interesting."

We had to share a king sized bed. All the rooms with two beds were booked. It wasn't a problem; the bed was so big it was impossible to tell there was anyone else on the other side.

We explored the harbor, had our first Hard Rock Cafe experience (it's LOUD), wandered by the water and admired the dragon boats.



They were all lined up, hibernating in the cool of the early evening.

It was early. We tried to go see a movie but couldn't find a theatre that was playing anything we wanted to see. We went back to the hotel, wandered the empty plaza and looked in the closed windows of the shops. The lingerie shop had mannequins who either looked embarrassed, or like they were trying to escape.
One stood by the door, bending forward slightly, hands against the window.

"Weird," I observed.

Back in our room, we played with the bed.

The most popular sleepnumber, the brochure told us, is 35.

35 is a little hard. So I pressed the controller and the air quietly let out of my side of the bed. 25 wasn't bad.

Here's the hilarious thing about sleep number beds. They make a really funny noise when you want to make them firmer. It's kind of like a weed whacker. Not horribly loud, but just not a noise you associate with the bedroom. My daughter hit the button to make her side firmer and I collapsed with laughter. Whirrrrrrrrrrrr

She had adjusted hers to 35, figuring all those other sleep number experts can't be wrong. Then she went to brush her teeth. I hit the button for her side and jacked it up to 80.

Yes, I'm a child.

I stifled a giggle as she hopped onto the bed and said, "Man, what happened?"

She figured it out.

She finally drifted off to sleep, hopefully with her side of the bed adjusted to the perfect sleep number. And I laid there. And it got hotter.

We'd tried to turn down the heat with no success. So I tried just the fan. Then the air conditioner. And it got hotter.

The clock ticked and I laid there, my legs aching from a recent bad experience with some heavy snow and a shovel. I took a painkiller I'd brought with me. Bad move. It was Excedrin. That's for headaches. It has caffeine. I was in for a long night.

At about a three ayem I finally surrendered. There was no point worrying about sleeping. It wasn't going to happen. So I spent the hot, quiet hours visualizing all the happy outcomes to various situations in my life that I'd like to experience.
I moved from bed to chair, back to bed, back to chair. Fiddled with the heat. Opened the window. Visualized some more.

Finally, somewhere around 5:30 I fell asleep. And when my daughter woke me at 7:30, it was 90 degrees in our room.

But my sleep number was stellar.