Mattress Shopping; Part 1

The other night while watching  TV, yet  another mattress commercial comes on.  Under normal circumstances I immediately tune them out, but since my wife and I are currently contemplating a new mattress I let curiosity get the better of me and actually listened.  Well, I was horrified with what I saw and  heard.  The source of my revulsion was Connecticut Mattress, but it could have easily been some other company blathering away during their sale du jour commercial.  These guys have more sale days in a month than there are days in a year!  Every holiday, seasonal change, president's birthday or any other excuse they have a sale.  Who would even think about buying something there when they don’t have  sale?  How desperate would one person have to be to buy a mattress that wasn’t on sale?  Hmmmm.  Well we could contemplate that until the cows come home,   So anyway, the owner of this joint is furiously hawking his wares about this inventory reduction sale up to 50%. Then he mentions  that this huge savings is good on, get this,  all mattresses including floor models.  Screech!!! Did he just say floor models?  I mean, WTF? I actually rewound the commercial because I thought I was hallucinating, but no he did say floor models.  You know, in all my years of watching mattress  commercials, I never thought that they actually sell, to the general public, at a discount price of course, a used mattress. Goodwill doesn’t even take used mattresses, and this guy is selling them?  How does he get  away with that? But an even bigger more horrifying idea is, “Who buys a used mattress?”  People have laid upon on it before you. People as in many, many people because it's a demonstration mattress.   “No sir, it’s not actually used;  it’s a demo.” That’s right.   Think of it as if it were a demo car daintily  driven around the block a few dozen times. This is in no way, shape or form, a used mattress.  I mean no one actually slept on it.  But still there is a really big ick factor.  “Hon! This old mattress of ours is getting too lumpy.  Let’s go down to the mattress store and buy a slightly used newer one.”  I really can’t imagine that people would buy something like that.  Is there a market for used hotel beds?  Now that is rather horrifying.  These must be the same people who buy the slightly dented cans,  day old bread, or Christmas candy in June.  “Yep, got my gently used bed at a real good price. Low mileage too. Only 5000 people slept on it before me.”