Things you can learn from a mattress

I've written a lot about past girlfriends. The bad decisions. The decisions you think are right at the time--and not just right, perfect--which ultimately prove themselves to be wrong. The love professed, the tears cried, the jealousy raged. It all seems worthless when you finally find "The One."

I've been thinking about this, lately. Probably because of Tressa and Brian's wedding, seeing the joy and love they have for each other, witnessing their profession before their family and friends. Tressa and Brian are much older than we were when we got married. Cyndi was barely out of college. She was on 22 and I was 26. I don't know many people these days who get married so young.


I love my wife for many reasons, but mostly because of the love she has for me. We rarely fight and if we do, it’s mostly because of some misunderstanding. The rare occasion when we are not “on the same page,” the missed communication, the taking each other for granted.

The first time we had an argument, it was over a mattress. Her parents had given us $500 to buy something special for our upcoming wedding. At about the same time, my mother had purchased the canopy bed we registered for at JC Penny’s. I had the brilliant idea that we should use the cash to buy mattresses for the bed. At that time in our relationship, money was scarce. We were both working full-time, but our salaries barely met our monthly expenses. I had brought a lot of debt into the relationship, and savings was just a word in the dictionary. Cyndi liked the suggestion at first, but then realized that her parent's feelings might be hurt if we made such a simple purchase. The money, she argued, was supposed to be for something special that would be a constant reminder of our new union. I countered that mattresses were the perfect example of our love because of the very act of making love on them. A simple thought from a simple, broke man.

The fight lasted several hours, and the tears Cyndi would cry were, in retrospect, wasted energy. The argument was the first real test of the strength of our relationship. If we could not agree on something as trivial as mattresses, how were we going to make it through the real tough times. This was the underlying issue. She was right and I was wrong, but, for whatever reason, I wasn’t giving in.

As the night turned into day and our egos were shattered, we decided to let the issue rest and go out for the day. Somewhere between the silence of our voices and the sound of the radio, a compromise was found. We drove past a clock shop and realized that what we were “buying” with our union was time. Time we would share together as husband and wife, and time which would be filled with love not arguments over mattresses.

The gift we agreed on was a Grandfather Clock. It was simple, and it was perfect. It is a constant reminder of our first fight and every time it chimes it softly says, “You win.”