When we moved out of our house 16 months ago, we got rid of all our mattresses. Jim and I bought ours around 15 years ago, and it lasted through 5 moves and one Super Puker baby. There was really no question we weren’t going to store it. The kids had super cheap twin mattresses because….well, because I am a cheapskate; and also because people who are practically brand new and weigh 60 pounds and aren’t, say 41 with back problems, don’t need high dollar beds.
Which I suppose is the long way around to saying that we went mattress shopping on Friday night.
We hit the local Big Chain Cheap Furniture Store, and tried a few out. Then we decided to shop around a little and see if there were any President’s Day deals to be had at the Super! Cheap! Mattress! Warehouse! (cheesy commercial font).
It was 7:30 and they were about to close when we walked in and told the guy we needed three mattresses – two full-sized and one king. We tried a bunch out, and of course the kids acted like freaking Goldilocks – “this one’s too soft! this one’s too hard! this one’s okay, I guess.”
Then we tried out the kings, which of course get more and more expensive the further up the row you get. We agreed on one finally, the poor sales guy following us around the whole time, tap-tap-tapping on his calculator and giving us the best price. We asked for a quote (so we could continue shopping on Saturday), and got ready to head home.
He goes and starts messing around with his computer, and then comes back to us and says, “you know, what if I called my boss and asked if he would give you a better deal?” and I said, “what kind of deal are we talking about?” He taps on the computer, sighing and lip-biting and dragging the whole thing out, eventually saying he would call and ask if the boss would be willing to cover the tax for us, which was a savings of about $160.
And I said, “sure, you can call, but that would still be over our budget…” and he’s all like, “well, what’s your budget?” and I said a number about $300 less than our actual budget. And he sucked the air through his teeth and acted like he never even HEARD a number that low before and said his boss would never go for it. Then he threw out another number that was not even in my ballpark, and Jim and I looked at each other and said, “Okay, well, just print the quote and we’ll talk about it and maybe come back.”
People never come back. Everyone knows that.
So he starts hemming and hawing and finally I said, “Look. Here’s the thing. We’ve already been to Bigname Cheap Store and we know we can get 3 mattresses there for about $700 less than you are quoting us. I know these are better quality, but frankly we just moved here and with all the expenses involved, we really have to stick to our budget. We really can’t go any higher than One Hundred Dollars Above What I Said Before.”
And he said, “if I call my boss and he goes for that number, and I don’t think he will, are you really going to do it?” and I said, “I’ll write you a check right now if you can get us out of here with those three mattresses, tax included, and free delivery for Number Still $200 Under My Budget.”
And he called.
And the boss went for it.
And that’s the story of how I talked the mattress salesman down $552.58. Only $200 more than Bigname Cheap Store for WAY better mattresses (Sterns & Foster), but still also $200 less than my planned budget.
Jim thought I was the bomb, which was the best part of the whole thing. He even fist-bumped me, because we are so cool like that.
*******
Now. Lest you start getting all carried away thinking how awesome I am, and wishing you were married to me and so on, I have another story.
The new house has a big pillar thing in between the dining room and the living room. Little likes to lean on it and jump on it and dance around it. It drives me kind of nuts.
Yesterday, I got fed up and snapped, “Little! Get off that pole!”
So. Yeah. I said that to my daughter. Awesome Mommy Moment #8973.
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