Oh My! Is that my mattress?

Today I celebrated another milestone in my car.  This afternoon I drove to Berkeley to pick up my new mattress from the Essentia store.

I am hopeful that this will make a significant improvement in the comfort.  Until now, I have been sleeping on some camping mats.  I was sleeping reasonably well, but the camping mats are narrow and not particularly soft.  I think this is going to be a major improvement.

Essentia is a manufacturer of organic mattresses.  They agreed to build me a custom mattress, designed to be very low profile.  I need a low profile mattress in the Prius, because I don’t have very much head-room in the back of the car–a standard height mattress just wouldn’t leave enough space.  I also needed something that doesn’t smell up the car.  Initially I tried a cheap memory foam mattress “topper”, but the smell was so horrendous I couldn’t have it in the car with me.  I am hoping the organic mattress won’t have a horrific chemical stench.  So far the Essentia mattress hasn’t been bad.  There is a slight smell and I’m not sure if it’s the mattress itself, or just the plastic it came wrapped in.  I hope it dissipates quickly.
Other than being low-profile, it’s a standard full-sized mattress.  I initially thought about customizing it further to cut around the wheel wells.  As I thought about this further though, I decided it would be nicer to roll over at night and bump up against a nicely padded wheel well with the mattress curving up over it.  You can see in the picture above, how the wheel wells are covered by the mattress, and the mattress contours to fit them.  Am I crazy for thinking this looks remarkably roomy?  …  Don’t answer that!

Behind the wheel well is a nice spot to keep my “library” of books that I’m reading or plan to read in the near future.  Here’s a quick shout-out to Stacey Martin, whose debut book finally arrived from Amazon.  Congratulations on getting your first book published, Stacey!  Your book just went to the top of my stack.

Here’s the mattress all made up with standard full-sized sheets, a pillow, and a toasty warm down comforter.  I’m ready for winter now.  Bring it on!

By the way, Dad, if you’re still reading this…  …it’s NOT looking good for your bet.

Finally, it wouldn’t be right to end this post without a shot of the Essentia store in Berkeley.  Once again, I would like to thank all the good people at Essentia for going way above and beyond the call of duty in building a custom mattress for my Prius!

EDIT:  Adding a link to the Essentia blog, which now features a post about little ol’ me….