The Hair of the Dog

"Mom!  No wonder you have insomnia!" complained our exhausted son Ryan when house-sitting last year. Steve and I sleep on a rock.  It's true, even campers look for softer ground than what we endure nightly. About six years ago we bought a very expensive 'healthy' natural latex mattress (rock) from a catalog furniture club.  It was to last 20 years (most rocks do indeed have long lifespans) so, of course, Steve insists that it should.
I tried everything: A thick mattress pad. A deep feather bed topper--all the feathers settle where we are NOT sleeping thus creating small feather mountain ranges. 'Unhealthy' petroleum based memory foam toppers 2" thick, 4" thick, yet, while providing softness, they are hot, smelly and itchy. We even layered ALL of these things like in the fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea" only instead of feeling the pea under it all, we felt a slab of granite.
I finally convinced Steve we NEED a new mattress so we went to Macy's and bought one to arrive in a month. I hate wasting anything, so thought we should use the rock up at the cabin--maybe cut it in half for two twin beds. I was going to get one of those popular 1970's electric knives at Goodwill and have at it. (This idea makes no sense on so many levels--most of all, why torture our cabin guests?)
I did some nocturnal Internet research, and have put delivery of the pricey new mattress on hold. We will try one last thing--the 'hair of the dog'. I went to a store and tried a SOFT, healthy, talalay natural LATEX 3" topper to go over the old, hard latex mattress and it was darn comfortable. Who knew latex came in different levels of softness? Steve wants to go try it so we'll see!  Right now, I am writing this in the middle of the night while taking a break from Plymouth Rock.          ©2/2012  Jana B Patrick
('The hair of the dog':  An expression meaning a small drink to cure a hangover--original saying:  'A hair of the dog that bit me')

Natural Latex coming out of a Rubber Tree.
Who wouldn't immediately think "mattress" when seeing this stuff?