Today was errand day, and it was quite productive. I began with a run to the dry cleaners on College Ave, bringing along 5 pairs of dress pants and 1 suit jacket. Yeah, I’ve been meaning to go for awhile now. It’s expensive to dress well; not only is the initial purchase cost of formal attire more expensive, weekly trips to the dry cleaners also adds up. I had even planned on getting cheaper dress pants so I wouldn’t mind too much the daily wear and tear, but I ended up getting Banana Republic when it went on sale sometime in May. Okay, that last sentence is a tangent.
After the dry cleaners, I headed over to Sleep Train in Emeryville and got myself a new mattress, a Tempurpedic to be more specific. The corporate living issued mattress I’m currently using has a very noticeable indentation when I lie on it; the sides tilt down into the center, which cannot be good for the back. Every morning, I wake up with some stiffness in some section of my back/neck/shoulder or other. It’s quite annoying and so I figured it was about time to invest in a good mattress, which I’ve also been wanting to do for a while now (a while roughly equaling about 2 years ago). Yes, the Tempurpedic definitely has a price premium, and like the iPad, it comes with MAP pricing (minimum advertised pricing policy), meaning vendors are contractually not allowed to price the product below a certain level (meaning no negotiated discounts). But it’s a good product, has a 20 year warranty (if the foam ever sinks 3/4 of an inch, I can get a new one), and has a good resell value once I grow out of the twin size. Also, Sleep Train itself has a pretty good service policy with a 100 day trial period in which you could return the mattress at any time if you’re not satisfied, as well as a credit program in which one could pay off the sum of the costs over a 36 month period with 0% interest and no required down payment. For me, it should come out to about $30 a month, which is not too bad, b/c if you think about it, that basically amounts to paying $1 every night for better quality sleep and the preservation of one’s back. And they also do free delivery. The entire process was relatively painless; I got to ask all the questions I wanted in order to be more informed in my purchasing decision, received sufficiently adequate answers, had ample time to try out different mattresses, filled out the paperwork, didn’t pay for anything (yet), and left knowing that I’ll be getting my mattress tomorrow afternoon, and this all within a 45 minutes span of time from when I entered the store to when I left. Exciting.
Leaving Emeryville, I got back on the 580 and went to Costco, mainly to buy supplies for the Lord’s day morning coffee table. The best thing about Costco? The free food samples! It’s like having a mini-meal each time. Today, I got to sample the tri-tip, chicken sausage, meatballs, wonton soup, teriyaki chicken & sirloin from the Hana Japan stand, and a cracker with almond butter spread. Yum. If I ever get locked in a supermarket/store overnight, I’d want it to be Costco. In fact, I bet I could live at Costco for a few months without any problem…as long as the security personnel don’t usher me out.
And lastly, swung by Ranch 99 for some groceries, got a papaya milk smoothie from one of the boba stores (maybe more on papaya milk in a later post), and then went home.
All in all, I think all the errands only took me 3 1/2 hours. I was also pretty pleased with myself on how my route swung through all the spots in an efficient sequence with minimal backtracking.