Matratze Direkte: Der beste Schlaf für weniger Geld

I hope you hear Kermit Ruffins singing “Mattress Direct: The Best Rest for Less” when you read that title.

We moved to Munich with only clothes and stuffed animals.

Our apartment was furnished with everything except mattresses and bedding. Easy. My last mattress came in a box and was delivered to my front door. How hard could this be? Search. Click. Buy. Unbox.

Those logistics were unmöglich (impossible). The Munich Marriott was our home at the time, and we had nowhere to ship or store a mattress-in-a-box. We needed to buy mattresses locally and pick them up on move-in day.

We loaded up our MONSTER (by German standards) SUV and drove the narrow streets to a mattress store. There aren’t mattress stores on every corner like the USA*, but there are enough and the overall feeling inside is the same. Kind of.

Mattresses line the interior of the store. Red stickers indicate promotions and discounts. Free pillows if you spend over a certain amount. This felt familiar.

We walked the aisles of foam, springs and feathers pushing down on each mattress to feel the potential- Goldie Locks style. Quin and I agreed on a firm foam mattress.

“Es tut mir leid, mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut. Wir brauchen ein ‘King Sized Mattress.’”
I’m sorry, my German is not very good. We are looking for a ‘King Sized Mattress’.
Alternative translation: Hello, we are Americans and we like big and sometimes unnecessary things. Did you see our massive car outside?

King Sized mattresses do not exist in Das Vaterland. This will not work. Alternating between Charades and Pictionary we finally understood we would push two mattresses together. I cannot explain why we did not pull up Google Translate in this moment. It would have made things much easier.

I think the lack of a King-Sized Mattress is the core of how German’s operate. There are two people with two separate needs. One mattress will not fulfill both needs. It could also be that older buildings require smaller pieces. I’m picturing the Friends “Pivot” episode. Or it could be that mundane things seem slightly more difficult here.

Whatever the reason a new freedom unfolded. I don’t have to compromise or agree on a mattress. This side is MINE.

This one is MINE.

The salesperson escorted us back to the mattresses to start over. Pressing or sitting on the mattress was not sufficient. We were required to lay down for minutes. Maddie’s salesperson TIMED her. I honestly believe had she sat up before his call he would have declined the sale. He also requested information that blurred the lines of trying to find out if she was single and wanting to find the appropriate bed slats. Nein, Danke.

This one is just right.

Nothing says comfort like laying down in a mattress store in front of a bunch of people.

The picture of comfort.

This is not a criticism of the German sales culture. Don’t worry, that’s my next post titled “The Customer is Always Wrong”. In my experience, shopping here is not rushed. It is thoughtful and much like the measure twice, cut once mentality. Lay down for a few minutes, you want to get this right or perhaps the German framing might be you don’t want to get this wrong.

Thinking back to what would have been an easy mattress-in-a-box Search. Click. Buy. Unbox: What do you do if you get it wrong? Have you ever seen a boxed mattress unfold? It’s mesmerizing. How do you put the mattress back in the box?

Not to get too deep here but I do feel like I’m getting things wrong more than right and there’s no way to put it back in the box. I don’t even know where the box is and to be honest, I’m not looking for it. I’m not trying to be emo in these initial posts, but I do think being honest helps set the scene for what we are experiencing daily. Good and bad. Right and wrong.

We got the mattress right. I made the bed and now I’m going to lay in it. Literally and metaphorically.

Now I just need to tell you my experience buying sheets and how I got that wrong.

Tschüss!

*If you have ever been curious about the oversaturation of Mattress Stores in the US listen to: Are We in a Mattress Store Bubble from Freakonomics.

Just a casual mile walk with these bedding slats.