I have finally bought a bed. After twenty-four years of sleeping on a futon, I got my new bed delivered today:

I love the height of hotel beds, and after a quarter century of crawling to floor level to sleep on my futon, I now will have to climb a little bit to reach bed level. I bought it two and a half weeks ago after a most satisfying time in the store where the salesman asked me lots of questions and invited me to lie on many different beds. I even got new pillows that will remain cool to the head.

Now I will need to buy new sheets. Although both my futon and the new bed are queens, my fitted sheets will not stretch to cover the new mattress. Some of my fitted sheets will not even make it to all four corners no matter how hard I pull at them. The fitted sheet I have on it now fits at the head of the bed but does not cover the foot of the mattress. I will go shopping for new sheets.

I have used the same comforter for twenty-four years and it is time to get a new one. The bedspread I have on the bed now used to be found on the spare bed in my maternal grandparents’ house. The spare room was where my grandparents kept their enormous aquarium, so we always called it the “fish room”. The bedspread is threadbare in places but I will keep it on until I get a new comforter or bedspread.