Go Sit On Your Memory Foam

Kathleen and I just bought a new gas cook stove for our kitchen. We grew tired of our electric range because it was so hard to regulate the heat to the burners. Too bad the electric stove didn’t have a memory that allowed it to return to the previous settings for sautéing veggies, cooking meat, etc.

You know, they have this new stuff called “memory foam” for seating and bedding now, why can’t they manufacture cook stoves that have memories? Maybe you have to pay $5,000 for something like that. Some cars memorize the last position of your steering wheel and the contour of your posterior. We just couldn’t see paying a new car price for a stove.

Anyway, my interest in memory foam stems from an article by Michael Schulman titled “Comfy Dept. Road Test” in Kathleen’s March 12 issue of The New Yorker. The article says that Jujamcyn Theatres, which owns five Broadway houses in New York, recently installed ergonomic seats in its August Wilson Theatre. A press release reportedly read, “Using dual density foams to encourage an anatomically correct posture, the patented ProBax cushions reduce backache and muscle fatigue from sitting.”

Cool! (Sam says cool too).

But Sam and I can see a potential problem or two with memory foam theatre seats. How can you occupy an empty seat closer to the stage if the dang thing won’t accept your particular rear end?

“You don’t belong here,” the seat says.

“Nobody else is sitting in this seat,” you point out.

“Sorry, the dimensions of your butt cannot be found in my memory.”

So you try to sit down anyway and this alarm goes off and the gendarmes escort you out of the theatre. I’d really hate it if that same scenario developed at a baseball game when I tried to move into an empty seat - probably couldn’t even hang my feet over the empty seat in front of me.

“I wouldn’t mind having a memory foam bed,” Sam says.

“Okay. What if you decide to change sleeping positions during the night and the silly thing refuses to allow you to get comfortable?” What if it says to you, “Sorry, you didn’t sleep in that position last night you’ll have to roll over?”

“I wouldn’t like that,” Sam says. “Hey, what if you had a memory foam toilet seat and it remembered one of your kid’s behinds and not yours? Sorry, buddy, you’ll have to go upstairs.”

“What if it was a heated toilet seat,” I add, “and it remembered a colder temperature when a person sat down because the previous occupier liked to do his or her duty without breaking a sweat? Some people like to meditate when they use the throne and cooler temperatures are supposed to be conducive to pondering the weight of the world. But br-r-r!”

“Good point,” Sam says.

“I remember my grand parents’ toilet out on the back porch when I was a kid. Boy it could have used a temperature memory!”

“Maybe you could just hover over the toilet seat if it didn’t remember you,” Sam says. “As long as you didn’t actually touch it you should be all right. I try not to let my bottom touch the wet grass when you take me outside.”

“You’re not very successful though,” I point out.

“You need to remember to cut the grass shorter.”

Sam and I came to the conclusion that memory foam could be useful, but it could also have drawbacks. Two bags of poop on the potential drawbacks.