I bought our mattress 20 years ago, as soon as I purchased the first Bedlam Farm and before Maria and I had even met. I drove to a furniture warehouse, lay down in a half dozen mattresses, haggled with the salesman, and finally bought one. A week later, a truck pulled up with two burly men who hauled the mattress up the stairs and put it on my new bed frame, the one Maria and I still sleep on.

The mattress has gotten soft and saggy, and we realized last week that it was on its last legs. So I decided to make the second mattress purchase of my life.

Maria is the muscle around the farm these days and an artist, a blogger, a poet, a videographer, and a photographer. I am the quartermaster and supply seeker as quartermaster and a writer, blogger, and photographer.

As the Amish learned, I am a killer at scouting and researching something new; I went online and researched these box mattresses I had heard about. There is no furniture warehouse near us; this seemed like the right way to go.

At first, I wanted to buy the $233 one Amazon recommended, but I know better than to buy the cheapest of anything on Amazon. A mattress is essential to both of us; we often have sore backs and muscles and aches, farms do that to you.

I did my homework, searched for independent reviews, read the online reviews carefully, even called a mattress company or two. I found three friends who had purchased box mattresses and called them.

The mattress companies are hard to reach; they push people to shop online.

One of the mattresses I was looking at came with bedbugs; according to a dozen reviews with video, they came from China; it seemed another was good but didn’t last long. Some took a long while to come. Some said you had to be careful because there was no easy way to return them.

I finally read three independent reviews – Good Housekeeping is one I trust – and focused on a Casper Queen-sized box mattress. It cost $1,200, which was higher than I planned, but it was the best choice, with the best warranty and reviews both independently and online. A mattress is a big deal, it may well be the last mattress I ever buy, and Maria is hauling hay and firewood every day and needs a firm mattress.

I wouldn’t say I like scrimping on something so personal and necessary every day of our lives.

So I bought it Friday, Maria agreed; I got it on Amazon. I feel that with a significant purchase, it’s essential to reach the seller, and I’ve never had any trouble reaching Amazon when I needed them.

I was offered a choice of delivery dates and picked today, thinking it was unlikely it could come so fast. Amazon said sure, Monday was fine. What time did I want it to be delivered? I choose 9 to 12, saying 10 a.m. would be the best time. We both cherish our morning time; that is our creative time, we rarely interrupt it or schedule things in the morning.

This morning, we got up early, and Maria pulled the mattress off of the bed and onto the floor. We planned to sleep on the new mattress tonight.

I was sent notifications this morning – when the mattress left the warehouse, how many stops it had to make. At 9:30, my cell phone rang. It was the driver of the mattress truck. He’d be there at 10 a.m., just what I had asked for. Was that tokay?, he asked. Yes, it was just what we wanted, I said.

I also got a message from the mattress’s “tech supporter.” I think he was from Amazon, but he may have been from Casper.

He suggested that the driver put the box on the right on the bed frame where we wanted it to go. Opening these boxes can be difficult, he said. It was a good idea.

Opening it on the bed would save us from hauling it off the ground tomorrow. As I recall, mattresses are not easy to move.

He said we could call him if we had any questions or problems. I felt good about this purchase.

He said we should let it breathe and grow for 24 hours and recommended we sleep somewhere else tonight. Don’t put anything heavy on it, he said.

He said the mattress would be firm and intact in the morning, like any mattress. The warranty is solid; the odds are this mattress will outlive me. He described how the air is sucked out of bed to make the mattress small and compressed enough to fit in a box.

(We are sleeping in the guest room tonight, where neither of us has ever slept.)

At 10 a.m., a big blue Amazon truck pulled up in front of the house. Two very polite young men got out carrying our mattress in a thin, five-foot box that looked like it would have contained a floor lamp or screen TV. For $19.95, the delivery crew would take it to our choice of any room in the house. I signed up.

They had it up the stairs in one or two minutes. One of them offered to cut the box open, and he had a plastic cutter and quickly slipped the wrapping off. It took him less than a minute. He offered to remove the packaging, the cellophane, and the container from the house. We thanked him. He said we had purchased one of the best brands available; he’d been delivering them throughout the holiday season.

He was based in Albany and could not have been more excellent or helpful. Ten minutes after he arrived, he and his partner and their truck were gone.

The box was opened, the new mattress was breathing and expanding before our eyes. I gave each one of them some money to thank them.

I hadn’t bought a mattress in so long a time; I was amazed that this big and beautiful mattress could have come out of that box. The world is constantly changing.

I’ll know more tomorrow night, but this looks like the most excellent mattress Maria and I have ever slept in. Spending that much money was a big deal for us. We are glad we did it.

As I write this, our new mattress is breathing and growing up. I can’t wait until tomorrow. Maybe it will be a mutant and take over the whole bedroom.

Except for the $1,000 I owe, it could have been easier or gone better. I often squeal about Amazon, like everybody else, but they made this as pleasant as it could be. I was impressed, which is a good and refreshing thing in this tired world.