The Cat Vomit Mattress

I’ve been married for seventeen years now. And like most marriages of a certain vintage, ours has seen its fair share of ups and downs, not to mention several passive-aggressive standoffs over entirely unimportant things.

The husband and I are both socially awkward desis, so naturally, ours was an aggressively arranged sort of affair. Our parents, having correctly concluded that neither of us possessed either the ability or the slightest inclination to find a spouse off our own bat, stepped in to do the honours.

With all the fanfare of a geriatric care facility launch, we were thrust onto the matrimonial market. It is safe to say neither of us caused many ripples there either.

Still, beyond the mandatory checklist: solvent, sane, not a serial killer, with the added bonus of a full head of hair and an approximately acceptable number of limbs, we both figured we’d done reasonably well for ourselves, as far as arranged marriages go.

Time and proximity, however, proved that the parentals and Providence had made exactly the right decision.

I didn’t fall in love with the husband at first sight. Or second sight.

To be perfectly honest, I was well into my fourth year of marriage to my mother-in-law, and my second year of motherhood, before I properly noticed him.

He, the ever-present, unobtrusively solicitous figure, kept things quietly running in the background when I might have gotten bored or, indeed, simply forgotten them by the wayside at the drop of a hat.

I think this realisation properly crystallised after a conversation with an old friend, when the conversation turned, as it often does with women of a certain age, to everyday marital woes and the common failings of husbands.

I complained. She complained. We both had almost two decades of marriage under our belts at this point. There were grudges and resentments aplenty to lovingly nitpick over.

Then, toward the tail end of our gossip session, I started feeling a little guilty. So, as a sop to my greasy conscience, I blurted out:

“Well, it’s okay. At the end of the day, I love my husband.”

And I do.

Let’s rewind to the precise point in time when I decided that, myriad differences notwithstanding, that overused, oft-abused word fit quite comfortably into our relationship.

One day, quite a few years ago, I suggested that the uncomfortable sofas in our upstairs portion be phased out and replaced with a floor-level, wall-to-wall seating arrangement.

My eldest was a toddler at the time, and an indefatigable little monkey, forever climbing and then inevitably falling off everything in sight.

The mister declared himself fully on board with whatever I had in mind. But I was leaving for my mother’s house in a couple of days. This was back in those halcyon times when the kids didn’t go to school, and trips from Karachi to my mom’s place in Punjab were not limited to school holidays.

So I went. And, as was my wont at the time, I spent upwards of a month there.

Because, at the time, I loved my mommy most.

And then I came home.

But on the day of my arrival, the mister was nowhere to be seen.

My mother-in-law made some vague noises about late hours at the office, and that was that.

I was PISSED.

I lugged a toddler and the lightest of my three bags up three flights of stairs, huffing and puffing, muttering colourful expletives under my breath every step of the way, fully prepared to give him a well-deserved piece of my mind whenever I saw his inconsiderate mug.

So I climbed the stairs, unlocked the room door, dumped my belongings, toddler and all, on the bed, and made a beeline for the bathroom in the adjoining room.

And there he was.

The sofas were gone.

And in their place, instead of the tastefully bohemian-looking neutral arrangement I had envisioned, was a solitary 25-by-18-foot lumpy mattress in a leprous-looking brown-and-olive jacquard.

If I were feeling charitable, I would have described the shade as reminiscent of cat vomit.

It covered the bulk of the room, sprawling from one end to the other like some hungry, cancerous landmass.

And sitting squarely in the middle of this space-hogging, lumpen monstrosity was the mister, grinning from ear to ear and looking absurdly pleased with himself,  a man who envisioned himself mere moments away from a grand romantic gesture on the scale of the Taj Mahal.

He sprang up eagerly, wanting to show off his Frankenstein-like creation.

“I thought I’d surprise you.”

“I’m surprised,” I deadpanned.

I poked it.

The surface was uneven and surprisingly rigid. The jacquard was prickly.

In acid tones, I asked, “Does it bite?”

“The guy at the shop said the stuffing is of the best quality.”

I looked at him- his oblivious, beaming face.

I sighed, then quipped:

“I bet. It looks like they’ve fattened it up on the carcasses of mattresses past.”

I kicked it.

It didn’t give an inch. The dense stuffing was rock hard.

“Ouch. This thing looks heavy. How did you even get it in here?”

“It took ten people.”

Of course it did.

“How much did you pay for this thing again?”

The mister quoted an exorbitant sum.

I looked at the bloated mutation of my interior décor fantasies lying on the floor and slowly raised my eyebrows.

Suddenly conscious of my less-than-delighted reaction, he manfully rallied.

“It’s totally worth it. There are also cushions and things. Should I go and get them? Let me show you.”

“Oh boy,” I muttered. “This thing has kids?”

He bounded back moments later, once again all smiles, arms laden with miniature versions of the brooding monstrosity on the floor.

He dumped them into my arms.

I almost keeled over.

He was so ridiculously pleased with himself.

I made an effort to smile.

But I had already put a dent in his palpable happiness.

His face fell.

“You don’t like it?”

In a word: no.

But that’s not what I said.

“No, no. I love it. It’s… very considerate.”

Because it is very considerate.

Wrong in every possible way, but still a kind and thoughtful gesture from an incredibly kind and thoughtful man.

I got rid of the mattress as soon as tact permitted.

And the mister has gone on to deliver many perfectly executed surprises after that.

By “perfectly executed,” I mean he now asks me exactly what I want, I provide specifications down to a molecular level, and he buys precisely that without deviation.

But still, to this day, nothing quite lives up to that godawful mattress.

Or the man sitting proudly in the middle of it.