Nothing Really Mattress

Trixie Bedlam's photo captures a poignant moment of bedbug existentialism.

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Antinous / Moderator

Funny slogan or not, it belongs in the garbage.

You have a trash can large enough to hold a mattress? It’s sitting on the sidewalk waiting for trash pick-up.
jonobo

This stuck in my brain, so i got up this morning and created a RL-Comment on a mattress on my street:

NOTHING ELSE MATTRESS

Photos over here:
http://motherbyte.com/nothing_really_mattress/everything_mattress.html
Robert

I’m just a bed bug, nobody loves me.

He’s just a bed bug, from the Cimicidae family, spare him his life from this mattressity.
Donald Petersen

Are you Serta?
- irksome
  
  I Sealy, but I don’t believe…ly.
  
  Somewhere, Freddy Mercury is smiling.
Spencer Cross

I’ve seen a different photo of the same thing written on another mattress. It’s the “‘Please Wash Me’ on a dirty car” of the 2010′s.
bklynchris

Hey New York Cityzens!

I just got a $100 fine for tossing out a box spring bc it was not wrapped/bagged in plastic. So, just in case you plan on throwing one out in the near future find a bag…a really, really, really big bag.
yepmatt

In lay terms, it’s existentialism, but to be more philosophically precise, it’s actually bedbug nihilism.
ihakes

Mad this dyslexia, I cannot dear.
spocko

Nobody’s a Perfect Sleeper. With the exception of Joey Heatherton http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYDwMm8Ud_s
hallpass

This reminds me of finding a washing machine in the woods while mountain biking that had “Be the agitator” spray painted on the side. It became a rallying cry for a small group of friends.
Also, Rob Cockerham’s Levitra couch discovery (prank?).
http://www.cockeyed.com/science/levitra/levitra01.html
BDiamond

But is it Queen-sized?
Anonymous

Very pillowsophical
bobk

They must have it pretty soft. They’ve been featherbedding for too long. Lying down is unbelievable.
Talia

Anyone can sleep. Nothing really mattress… to ZZZZZZZ.
Quiet Wyatt

What if the sanitation dept. won’t pick up anything left on the curb that *doesn’t* fit inside one’s personal dumpster, or sealed in a trash bag sitting beside it? And what if charity orgs won’t take mattresses in any condition? Advice?
- Donald Petersen
  
  Advice?
  
  Consult your local mattress store. Often, if you buy a bed, they’ll take your old bed away for recycling. But even if you aren’t in the market to buy, if you catch a nice salesperson on a slow day and explain your quandary, he or she might be inclined to point you to a useful way to dispose of the old mattress. Besides, you might thereby end up being suitably impressed by their helpfulness and more likely to shop there when you are in the market.
burritoflats

I guess someone was just throwing cushion to the wind
- StevieB
  
  Ha!:)
Anonymous

I prefer my own version of the “please wash me” original.
Tlahuiz.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150103986695798&set=o.113997915287366&theater
Anonymous

Photo by Trixie BEDlam. Oh you…
Boondocker

10 years ago, I was a poor guy traveling in Australia. I needed a mattress, saw one on the street, and judged the one chewed-on corner to be less of a flaw than a feature. I took it home to my rented, furniture-free apartment (I’d been sleeping on three couch cushions wrapped in a bedsheet to that point) and used it for a couple of months.

I shudder to think of that now.
Tristan

Someone had one of these in my neighborhood as well. Thought it was rather comical at the time.

http://twitpic.com/2co2yp
Jake0748

“What if the sanitation dept. won’t pick up anything left on the curb that *doesn’t* fit inside one’s personal dumpster, or sealed in a trash bag sitting beside it? And what if charity orgs won’t take mattresses in any condition? Advice?”

Hire/rent a truck and take it to the landfill yourself?
Hire/rent a moving company to take it to the landfill?
Call city hall or county administration and ask them wtf?
Set it on fire and let the F.D. deal with it (or not)?
Put it over on your neighbor’s property?
Just leave it out there on the curb?
Move away?

I guess the option I’d try first would be #3
Jamie Sue

Did I just experience spiritual enlightenment? Or is that a bite?
Anonymous

Damn, came in here to make the “Queen-sized” joke and was beaten to it.
j.black

I saw one of these in Brighton, UK last July — o’ the humanity!
M Ridenour

Is that a Jean-Paul Serta?
Phikus

…Anyone can see. Nothing really mattress to meeeeeeeeee…
Antinous / Moderator

I can’t believe someone ruined a perfectly good mattress when there are children in Uzbekistan sleeping on piles of goat dung. Damn hipsters.
BB

I don’t know what my position is, I’ll have to sleep on it.
songofsixpence

Did someone just leave that filth-infested bug nest lying on the sidewalk for someone else to deal with?

Funny slogan or not, it belongs in the garbage.
- Donald Petersen
  
  it belongs in the garbage
  
  Enough with the sanctimonious Posturepedic-ing!
  
  (Where’s Airpillo when you actually need him? There’s a fella that knows how to keep his Tempur-Pedic.)
BB

BTW, does anyone else think that the mattress was seriously ‘burned in’?
Anonymous

A flolloping, globbering, volluing, vooning, and willomying mattress called Zem with Marvin’s personality disorder… Wait, wasn’t Marvin stranded on the mattress planet Squornshellous Zeta with only mattresses to talk to?
Anonymous

Bohemian Napsody.
emmdeeaych

must be one of those ‘living’ beds i keep hearing about.
Lucifer

it looks lonely. Someone should comforter.