caption goes here... when i feel creative...

It's been a while since I talked about the TempurPedic people, those wacky Swedes with mattresses from the future. Somewhere in a warehouse, they have a wormhole that they're carting mattresses through from the year 3070. It's craziness, and nobody's stopping them.

Maybe all of that isn't very accurate, but it's pretty convincing, eh? I thought so.

I used to be upset that NASA was wasting money on mattress technology. We have planets to pillage and resources to plunder-- we don't need to make mattresses-- we need to kill aliens. I know, it's savage, but it must be done. Where will our kids live if we don't do our part? How will there be a Disney Planet if we don't clear out the cuddly Ewok-looking residents that are already there?

And we know NASA's spending habits. Nobody's put limits on those guys until recently. Before that they were spending money on all sorts of things-- Mars rovers and trips to the moon-- not to mention that International Space Station. All they ever seem to do is fix that thing, right? I guess if they're laying on such comfortable mattresses all day, things are going to hell.

The TempurPedic guys are back to bugging me again. All these commercials just remind me how callus the organization can be. You've seen it, right? At least once? They're dropping bowling balls and stuff on the mattresses? Then they show you that somebody can jump on the bed and not disturb their partner. Every time I see this commercial with people and "the wine test" comes on, they seem to make the same, easy joke: "So you can totally go at it with somebody next to your sleeping partner, and not disturb them." I hang out with heathens and scoundrels. I mean, conceptually it makes sense, but you need to be in a really messy relationship to put out $6,000 for a bed just so you can cheat on your partner while they sleep. I think I know a girl from Maryland that would do that, but that's it. Oh, I didn't make that number up either.

Infidelity aside, what's got me so worked up? Well it appears that the TempurPedic people are traveling around the country and going to malls to pimp their beds (their $6,000 beds). In these malls, people are drawn to Swedes like dryer sheets to the inside of my pants, but not clinging enough that they don't come out when I'm in public and make me look stupid. They're really drawn to Swedes though. They come out from the rafters to see this amazing bed.

Then they (the Swedes) take Vince, or Tony, something that a guy with a thin moustache would be named. They take Vince and tell him to jump on their bed. As he jumps, a glass of wine rests comfortably. It sits un-moving, not even aware that Vince is there. It's AMAZING. Even Vince is in awe of how the wine does nothing.

Then, comes the massacre. They stand Vince on a regular bed. They put a wine glass on it. They tell Vince to jump. He does. Wine tumbles down like the blood of our forefathers. It stains the mattress like their blood stained the battlefields they fought for freedom on. It's not in slow motion, but it may as well be. Even the TempurPedic man sounds like he's in pain as the wine falls.

And this is when I cry on the inside. I cry for the mattress and the homeless. TempurPedic goes around the country staining mattresses, while the poor homeless don't even have a bed to sleep on. They could sleep on that mattress that Vince is staining right now. Instead, they sit in an alley, on a cardboard box, getting cold and stiff. No one cares about the orthopedic comfort of the homeless, do they? Is this the message we want to send to our children?

And the charity? What's TempurPedic doing to give back? Nothing that I can find. You type "TempurPedic" and "charity" into Google and you know what you find? Somebody who's raffling off a bed-- it wasn't donated by the company though-- it's used-- only 18 months old. With depreciation, that bed's still probably worth more than $3,000.

I just don't know how the Swedish people can sleep at night, knowing that there are poor people out there who could be sleeping on bad mattresses, but instead have none. And you can just see some bikini model with a stick, poking at the fire of burning stained mattresses. I know I can see it, in my mind. And even though I want to wipe it away and show that I'm tough, I let the single tear fall down my cheek. It's the very least I can do to remember the homeless that lay on cement.

For you homeless with internet access, I want you to know that we care.