This mattress

S and I have a long-standing joke that dates back to ~1993, when we visited H together for what was, for me, probably the second time. H lives in what used to be a summer cabin in a farming village outside of Munich. Both the house and the village have grown over many decades, but the house remains tiny even by German standards. Consequently, H put us up in the Nebenhaus--a former stable that had evolved into two extra bedrooms. (Shortly after that visit, H renovated it into a bright little studio apartment to rent out.)

The bed we slept in consisted of a thin, narrow foam mattress atop a hard wooden board--at least, I like to recall it as foam. It might have been something more archaically austere, like a lumpy sack of straw or horsehair. S and I were still newly in love and happy to squeeze close together, but the bed was nonetheless the most uncomfortable thing I have ever slept on that could still reasonably be called a "bed" (as opposed to "camping gear" or "ascetic's impedimenta"). We were not happy campers.

At the time, we were bright-eyed, bushy-tailed grad students in Madison, WI--futon capitol of the Midwest. After a respectful number of painful nights in the Nebenhaus, we suggested to H that perhaps the hard wooden board would be much more comfortable with a nice new futon mattress on it, rather than the thin lumpy thing we were attempting to sleep on.

H bristled at the suggestion. Drawing herself up with an incredulous huff, she said,

This mattress has served our family well for 20 years, and now you have a problem with it?

S and I have quoted H often in the two-plus decades since then. "These [hole-ridden] dish towels have served our family well for 19 20 years!" "This sweater [that has been reduced to a pile of detritus on the closet floor by case-making clothes moths] has served our family well for 12 20 years!" "This [oil-leaking, smoke-spewing, ant-infested] car has served our family well for 14 20 years!" It's a very handy phrase.

So you know what we said earlier this week, when H asked us to take her on an IKEA Pilgerfahrt to get her a new mattress.