Like everyone else, I hate mattress shopping and I’ll gladly wait until my old mattress is sagging like Hilary Clinton’s poll numbers before buying a new one. But finally, after dreaming that I was being swallowed whole by the Staypuff Marshmallow Man, I realized that there was nothing to be done but go out and shop for a mattress.

It was Saturday of a President’s Day weekend, which celebrates all the Presidents except for Harrison (c’mon, the guy died of pneumonia 31 days after being inaugurated), so the mattress store was pretty empty. I walked in.  I found the area that more-or-less matched my budget.  (Hint: it wasn’t the $8,000 section. Who spends that kind of money on a mattress? They’re not even stuffed with hundred dollar bills.) I cracked my knuckles. I did a few stretching exercises.  My mental iPod kicked in and started playing Moby’s “Jam for the Ladies.”

And then I sprang on the mattresses.  I flopped on them and pretended to take a nap. I somersaulted off of them. I leaped from on top of them and did a brilliant triple dismount, landing agilely on my feet and only lightly spraining my toe.  I wiped the sweat from my brow and did the whole routine again.  My mental iPod segued into “Footloose,” and I bounded from mattress to mattress like an 18-year old mullet-headed Kevin Bacon.

After jumping off my favorite mattress and sliding across the floor on my knees, I stopped to take a break and calibrate my findings.  At that moment, the salesman came over to talk to me. “I hope you’re finding everything you’re looking for. And please, feel free to lie on the mattresses and find the one that’s right for you.”

I realized that he hadn’t seen me. I said, “Uh, yeah, I’m actually doing that.  I figured it was okay to test the mattresses when you’re shopping for one.”

He laughed. “You’d be surprised. It’s often a chore to get people to try the mattresses.”

“What, really?”

“They just feel uncomfortable about it.”

Christ. I may not be the most spontaneous or hedonistic guy in the world--the closest I’ve been to anything like Burning Man was when a bagel accidentally caught fire in my toaster oven--but even I know that when you shop for mattresses, all bets are off. You snore, you drool, you jump, you bounce. Bring your Significant Other and spoon. It doesn’t matter. It’s a mattress store, not an art gallery.

This brings to mind some of most poignant words that I’ve ever heard.  I often see them hanging up in picture frames in houses and over people’s desks at work. They inspire me. I call them the Mattress Mantra, and they should be the bywords of mattress shoppers everywhere:

Haggle for them like you really need the money
Roll around on top of them like nobody’s watching
Bounce off them like you’ve never been hurt.