The Mattress
It came to my husband and my attentions that we had reached a point in our lives where it was time to buy a new mattress. Like most couples, we had varying opinions on how space should be allocated, but like anyone with a cat, our opinions were not factored into what the cat was going to do. So, despite my husband's very articulate instructions to our calico cat, she was not interested in sleeping anywhere but where his legs were. Of course this made my husband even warmer than he normally was, which then made me overly warm, and it was decided a bigger bed was the answer. Now, I was not sure if getting a bigger bed would prevent the cat from sleeping on my husband, but it would give me more space to get away from both of them, who, when combined, created the same energy as the core of the sun. So, one weekend we went mattress shopping.
The first place we went was a rundown warehouse, complete with strategically located buckets which caught the rain that was leaking through the roof. The salesmen gave us some halfhearted pitches, complete with information which was the total opposite of what my husband had researched, and we eventually left for another store.
The next store was cleaner, more organized, and we go our very own salesman who, to his credit, wasn't overly pushy. We found a mattress we liked, but my husband insisted on us going to some more stores. I made him take a break to get a snack, and we bought some cookies which were entirely too sugary, and my husband ended up eating both and then complaining that his stomach hurt.
The next two stores we went to included a warehouse so big you couldn't see the other side, and then a tiny place next to a brewery with a saleswoman who followed us around and threw random pitches at us, which I refused to acknowledge.
We finally went back to the second store and bought the mattress we liked.
"Would you like a mattress protector..." the-not-so-pushy salesman asked.
My husband is not the kind of person who bites at an up sale, ever, and while I thought, maybe we should get one, cats and all, at that point in the day, all I wanted a salty snack, and I knew I was closer to getting one the sooner we got out of there.
We bought the mattress and they said they would deliver it in a few days.
A few days later, I was at work, and my husband sent me a photo of him on our new mattress with our grey cat, who, my husband told me, did in fact like the mattress.
I got home that night and went about doing whatever I was doing and forgot to go look at the new mattress. Then, around eight pm, I was sitting on the couch, when the grey cat suddenly ran up the stairs. Then we heard it. The telltale cat puke noise.
My husband was up the stairs faster than I could stand up. I followed him.
The grey cat had puked on not only the bed, but on our one set of sheets too. My husband was peeling back the sheets, trying to save the unprotected mattress below, and together we removed the sheets, and I got to see the mattress for the first time.
He cleaned up the mattress and I got the sheets in the laundry. When I finished that, I found my husband pacing the house, whispering to himself, "Those cats are always trying to destroy everything we love."
Which I think is a bit of an overstatement. That's too big picture thinking for the grey cat. Maybe not the calico, but the grey cat for sure. He's not really the conspiratorial thinker.
Thankfully, I texted the situation to one of my group chats and immediately got a link for a non-plastic mattress cover.
Maybe the conspiracy isn't the cats, but that Big Mattress Protector is using cats to complete their objectives.
Because in the end, we bought a mattress protector.