The man on the telephone is helpful.

Although I had chosen a mattress from their wide range, it had not been delivered, due to some mysterious soiling all over it. I do not hold this against the amiable salesperson, as there is probably an utterly reasonable explanation.

“I’m very sorry that we’ve let you down,” he says.

I make ‘don’t worry, this sort of thing happens to me all the time’ noises down the phone. Which isn’t altogether far from the truth, annoyingly.

“What we thought,” he continues, “is that we could lend you a mattress. Until a new one arrives from the manufacturers.”

“An unsoiled one?”

“Yes – one from the showroom.”

I consider this for a few moments. I remain a bit dubious about the mattress people. Although I am all for enjoying your work, taking an interest in your products etc etc, I do not think you should go as far as to leave them soiled, and if you do I think that perhaps you are in the wrong job and should perhaps go and work in PC World or suchlike. I am not one to judge. Whatever deviant practices are going on are fine by me, but what goes at discount mattress people, stays at discount mattress people. Plus I still have a perfectly good old mattress at home.

“Yes, that’ll be fine,” I reply.

“They’re lending us a mattress?!?” splutters the LTLP.

“Yes. It is all above board,” I tell her. “The orignal mattress was soiled, so they are going to lend us a special one to use on our bed for a couple of weeks, and then they will take that one back to their warehouse and get us the one we originally ordered.”

“A special one.”

She is sceptical. But she has no reason to be. The temporary mattress arrives just as promised, and is very comfortable.

“We’ll be able to pick that up again in a couple of weeks then,” says the Mattress Person, rubbing his hands.

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