Tempurpedic What?
One man's (odd) journey to a Tempurpedic bed
I
wanted a Tempurpedic bed, but I couldn't wrap my head around paying that much for what is essentially a slab of foam. Yeah, it's incredible foam, I determined as much from my considerable time invested in playing with the free foam sample Tempurpedic sent me. That's when I had the brilliant idea of getting a memory foam mattress (made by Tempurpedic, no less) for free.
Full disclosure, I still don't really have a Tempurpedic bed, but I do have part of a Tempurpedic mattress topper! (sort of) After Tempurpedic refused to send me more free foam. I made a Tempurpedic site selling people, complete strangers, on the idea of sending me free foam. Order your foam sample from Tempurpedic, play with it, then send it to me. I'll sew all of the little pieces together and make my own Tempurpedic mattress. Ta-da, end of story. Or not.
The free foam samples didn't even trickle in to my PO Box. I foolishly thought you (and your friends) would just send me foam. My otherwise incredibly brilliant plan was failing. You weren't doing your part. Clearly, you required incentive. My crack(pot) legal team hastily organized a preemptive IPO of a soon-to-be company that will manufacture Tempurpedic memory foam mouse, gerbil and hamster beds, largely using the leftover pieces of foam from my also soon-to-be-free craftwork mattress topper. You send me foam, you get a stake in the new luxury pet memory foam mattress company.
Tempurpedic beds don't come so easy, I guess.
So I set up a page called, "Three Good Reasons to Donate your Tempur-Pedic® Foam," replete with a mockup of said preemptive stock certificates. It just made sense. You listened. Free, slightly used Tempurpedic foam samples began to fill my PO Box. But not nearly enough. I had enough foam to play with or to throw at my cat, but still didn't have enough to make my own bed. What was I missing?
Vanity. You're vain. I should've known that. So I set up yet a third Tempurpedic page with pictures of the foam you've sent in. You draw on your foam. I take a picture. I put it online. You show your friends, gaining major cool points. They send me foam... The whole thing just snowballs until I have a Tempurpedic bed. But alas, I don't have one yet. What did you do wrong? Maybe you should stop stumping for Harry Shearer and write something meaningful, like, "Send more foam! Save the whales!"
Send me more foam, damnit. Send it now. Visit my Free Tempurpedic Bed Project page ASAP and get to work. In the meantime, I spent a little bit of coin on a Bragada memory foam mattress topper. It cost about one tenth as much as a Tempurpedic bed and I'm pretty happy with it. (Until I win the lottery or get enough foam to... you know.)
Dan Dreifort is a writer, consultant, musician and an IT/marketing/SEO/usability geek. He helped start an ISP in the 1990s and enjoys international travel. He wears size 10.5 shoes and has a 32" waist. Friends called him 'Duck' in high school. His mother calls him 'wonderful.' Contact him via