Choking on Latex
By Michael Erlewine
Certainly, for me, crazy-enough days, both out in the world and around home. You don’t even want to know, but it’s my only story these last days worth telling.
A few chapters ago I told of our trip for four days to Ann Arbor for a handful of events. A principal outcome of those four days is that I slept in a regular bed and also on a very large couch.
Be that as it may, I came back with an entirely rested back whereas before my lower back has been experiencing a lot of pain. Now it was gone and for no reason I know.
It did not come from food I ate in Ann Arbor that I do not regularly eat or best not eat. No way. I ate all kinds of stuff, often against my better judgement.
No, it was that my back was no longer sleeping on three large pillows on the couch which I often sleep on. Well, that served as a trigger for looking into my couch-sleeping activity.
I looked into alternate couches and beds and mattresses of all kind. All of the various AI devices (Claude, GROK, and ChatGPT) seemed to point out that organic latex was a natural solution, so I ordered some and wanted it to go on my couch as a topper to smooth things out.
Well, that seemed to improve things for the moment, for ‘a’ moment, but I soon found as organic as organic latex is, I am allergic to breathing the micro-dust that blows out of the hundreds of tiny holes in the latex and settles in my lungs.
Within a few days I had developed a cough and that cough just got worse. As it turns out movement on the latex matress forced the micro-latex particles out and available to my longs. I was sick from it.
And I had to cut the latex matrix down to 30” wide which was the size of sleeping portion of the couch, so I could not returning it.
And the AI Bots then cried, “Get a topper, get a topper, one that encapsulates the latex so no latex dust escapes. I did. I did.
I will not spend too much time pointing out that these toppers, foam, and latex manufacturers charge through the nose for their product, and at least two of them advertise custom fitting encapsulated topper cover, and in truth did not offer them. One even took my money and a day later returned it too me and said they could only provide custom-fit covers for standard sizes. What part of custom-fit do they not understand? They took the measurements and agreed to do it. And then walked their word back.
It’s all for naught because even when I got cover on Etsy and used that plus another cover a queen-sized flat sheet which I had safety pinned over that pesky organic mattress…. Even then… the latex dust came up right through both covers and entered my lungs.
I am giving you the short version. The actual version went on for days with me waiting for every delivery with hope. And that hope was never honored.
Next in line came the orthopedic mattresses made without latex, without foam, and all kinds of other things you don’t want around you. In the end I only found one orthopedic mattress from a company with offices in Illinois and Indiana, ‘Beloit Mattress Company’ and they do make-to-order mattresses, but only within about 300 miles will they deliver, otherwise you have to hire a trucking firm to deliver and they will only bring it to the curb, not to your front door.
I am still waiting to see if I can get one of those. In the meantime, I am fed up with business and have begun to see the mattress business as rip-off or another kind.
It is clear that the 108 x 38 inch couch cannot be saved and that I need something that is like a couch but with the level-ness and comfort of a couch.
While I am waiting to hear how and ‘if’ the Beloit company can ship me the orthopedic Medium Tufted matrix which they say is what I want because I am a slide-sleeper, not a back-sleeper, I need to get this couch out of my office.
The problem is that the couch has been in my office so long, decades, that things intervene and the area at the door is too tight for the couch to go through, and it requires two big strong people to lift the couch high enough to clear the doorway. How am I going to do that? And it’s the middle of the night.
It required I take the door to my office off and inch the large couch toward the doorway and then using a stepstool climb on top of the side of the couch and inch my way through the doorway, drop down on the other side, and then push the couch through the doorway and finally lift one end about 29 inches into the air (to clear one of the desks) and then push the couch on through and set that end down outside my office door…..and then climb over it again. Yet, it is out. And Margaret and I carried it next door today. Heavy.
In order to bring in a twin mattress from our center next door, I had to build a foundation out of wood. This took one ¾-thick 4x8 foot panel and 5 8-foot 2x4s, which I went out and brought back.
Then I had to cut the top of the panel down to 38”x80” and then cut the top panel in half so I could maneuver the two pieces. Under that I built a 2x4 frame for the foundation and then fixed the two pieces of the 38x40 inch plywood, being careful to cut corners off of the top panel so I can run wires underneath that carry electricity and signals.
And finally, I put a temporary Twin mattress on the foundation and tucked everything in. Now I am ready to at least takes naps on it.
[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here are the links: StarTypes.com.
As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.