Blame it on Beautyrest

Man, I'm getting old, I thought as my knees creaked and screamed at me while I was walking up a flight of stairs.

I'm no spring chicken, but my knees really don't have to announce their years of wear and tear as loudly as they were doing this past weekend.

Thinking I might have to make a doctor's appointment, I went to bed early and woke up with hardly any pain. The reason -- earlier in the week, I'd slept on a different mattress.

Now I was back in my own bed and, miracle of miracles, I was cured.

Who'd have thought a good nights' sleep could be a cure all for those aches and pains? To make things even more convenient, I now have a nearby culprit for any time things go wrong -- I slept wrong.

That's an excuse that goes back hundreds of years, probably to the cavemen.

"Honey, I couldn't bring home a mastodon today because the cave floor was lumpy and I just didn't get my beauty rest."

Inability to concentrate? Must be the inner coils in the Serta are shot.

Forgetful and restless all day? The Beautyrest has lost its charm.

It's not that researchers haven't heard the moans from the sleepy, and they've made incredible strides in mattress technology. Manufacturers now have mattresses with memory foam that remember every bend and bulge in your body and react accordingly.

These mattresses are so smart that consumers can adjust the head rest, order the perfect tension in the box springs and even set levels for two sides of the bed, tailor made for each person.

They're no longer referred to as a lowly mattress and box springs -- they're horizontal living spaces that support everything about you.

Children instinctively understand the philosophy that nothing beats sleeping in one's own bed. Most of us want to sleep in our own bed because that's our safe place. When children have to share their safe place, things can blow up rather quickly.

Growing up in a family with seven children, we all shared a room with a sibling, and I remember sharing a double bed with my sister, Diane.

Five years younger than me, we fought as all sisters do, especially ones forced to share their living space. Every single night, we followed the same script.

"Here's the line," I'd say, taking my hand and making a dent down the middle of the mattress.

"You can't cross that line because then you'd be on my side."

My sister, ever the protagonist, would wait until I was almost asleep and then slip her foot over the imaginary line.

"My foot's over the line," she'd whisper.

To which I'd kick her foot back over the line. She'd kick back and the battle raged until one of us ended up on the floor.

If we'd had a mattress with a memory, that imaginary line could've opened up automatically at 10 p.m. and then ejected the sister who crossed the line. No shoving or discussion required.

Perhaps the answer to a lot of life's frustrations and arguments can be found in getting the right mattress. Just think -- those Tempur-Pedic or King Koil mattresses might help us remember where we put the car keys or our cell phones and, in the case of fighting siblings, toss both out of the bed onto the floor to cool off.

After all, if a mattress can remember the shape of our hips and thighs, then handling the pesky details in life should be a cinch.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.