Mattress shopping is weird, because generally speaking, mattress salesmen are a personality mix of socially awkward and socially aggressive. I suppose this stands to reason, because being mattress salesman is probably not a first-choice career or even a fallback option but a dead last resort. This tends to fill a person with bitterness and self-loathing.

I am quite positive this was case with Edward, our Sleepy’s salesman, but he masked it. Even though he wouldn’t look Sam or me in the eye, his tone was confident, his manner affable. He was focused on selling us a great mattress at a great price, which should have made us immediately suspicious, since this is hardly a normal interest for a thirty-year old guy.

First, we had to lie down on a computerized bed that would determine our ideal mattress. It felt hokey, like one those carnival games that gauge your sexual prowess by the strength of your grip, but when you’re in a mattress store in a strip mall assuming the fetal position while a guy in a suit stands over you with a scanner, you’re hardly in a position to be cynical.

According to the computer, our ideal mattress was “plush.” As luck would have it, a plush mattress had just been reduced to one dollar less than our spending limit. We tried it and would have bought it when Edward asked, with a Machiavellian gleam in his eye, if we’d like to try the next level up.

The next level up mattress was fabulous, and when we considered the fact that a superior mattress is the best investment you can make in terms of overall health (I’m quoting Edward here) we said yes.

He wasted no time in high-fiving us to his station to sign on the dotted line. Not only had we bought a quality mattress, we made a friend. Best of all, the new mattress would be delivered the next day.

The following morning, before the delivery, I called Sleepy’s because we needed to add a frame to the order. The male voice on the other end of the phone sounded groggy. I started to explain who I was when I was cut off. “Yeah, I know who you are. I helped you yesterday.”

“Edward?” He was curt, perfunctory, like a dude with a hangover who hated his existence, and by extension, me.

That’s when I figured out that we’d fallen for the oldest sales trick in the book, the bait and switch. The bait here was not the mattress, but Edward, who, as it turns out, wasn’t our friend, but a Mattress Professional, which brings us back to what I said in paragraph one.