The mattress man stands before kings

I needed a mattress and box springs for the spare room and Barbara had a pick-up truck and knew the best place—small, no-frills, and nothing but beds lined up side by side.

Barbara told me on the ride up that before she went in to the store with her husband a while back, she felt sorry for any man who did nothing but sit in a store and sell beds all day. But upon their arrival, they were greeted by a cheerful fellow who regaled them with the arcane details of bedding choices: soft versus hard versus medium, edge support from foam encasement or additional coils, flipping the mattress, steel versus cardboard reinforced box, and much more. You may not be excited, but the mattress man was.

The salesman was there again when Barbara and I arrived, and was as cheerful as she remembered him. It was clear he was the owner. A landscaping boss I once had told me, “Nobody cares about your business as much as you do.” I protested in vain, for we both knew it was true. I was reminded of Solomon and the story of the harlots who both claimed ownership to a baby:

“[T]he king said, ‘The one says, “This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead”; and the other says, “No, but your son is dead, and my son is the living one.”’ And the king said, ‘Bring me a sword.’ So a sword was brought before the king. And the king said, ‘Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.’ Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, ‘Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death.’ But the other said, ‘He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him.’ Then the king answered and said, ‘Give the living child to the first woman … she is his mother’” (1 Kings 3:23-28, ESV).

I also remembered what Jesus said about ownership:

“… The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them” (John 10:11-12, ESV).

It just so happens that the mattress store owner had an assistant who sat idly across the room while his boss was giving us an education in fibers and memory foam. At one point the boss called him over so he could learn more, and the apprentice shuffled in our direction but without much enthusiasm. (Perhaps he would have suggested sawing the baby in two to be fair.)

Barbara no longer feels sorry for the mattress man. She sees that he is happy. He loves what he does. He knows his mattresses and his mattresses know him (if I may put it that way). He is an expert in fine sleeping apparatus and thus fulfills an important role in the community. And though there is scant royalty living in Montgomery County, Pa., we have this hope laid out in Proverbs:

“Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings …” (Proverbs 22:29, ESV).