We've got a new mattress being delivered this afternoon, so have just lifted the old mattress out to try and make life easier for the delivery men in the heat. I decided that I'd also pay the increased price for collection and disposal rather than book the significantly cheaper council one that would mean leaving it outside for a van to collect.
Oh. My. God. It's disgusting. It's not just stained from twenty years (I was skint, so replacing it just didn't happen), it stinks. Absolutely reeks, to be precise.
I've always thought I was pretty clean - the house is clean, the bedlinen is always changed like clockwork, I always ensure that any area or appliance that a workman is going to look at or touch is sparkling before they arrive. I've had a topper on it, multiple covers, I thought I'd spot treated it effectively taking into account peri, children, pets and nobody else thinking 'do not take drinks to bed with you' applied to them. But it's all there on the underside, like a particularly traumatising version of the Shroud of Turin.
DP's off to the shop to make sure that the delivery men have ice cold drinks - water and Coke - to try to lessen the horror for them. I've lugged the wheelie bins out of the way so they don't have to manoeuvre it over the garden wall (and so that the neighbours hopefully won't clock the scale of the monstrosity leaving the house) and sprayed about a gallon of freshener over it. But I can't look anybody in the eye about this.
Obviously, I've already bought a protector for the new one. And heaven help anybody who even thinks about a cup of tea upstairs in the next 10 years. Or even looking at it without a MN approved full nuclear decontamination shower first. But OH MY LORD, I fully understand the phrase cringing myself inside out right now.
I'm going to have to hide until they leave. I can't look anybody in the eye with them knowing this. Maybe I should invent an elderly relative? Or a rescue dog expiring on it? Or just leave the country...?