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Let me start by saying I didn't move to Juneau for the retail shopping opportunities. Although, if it's knock-off Deadliest Catch merchandise you're in the market for, this is as good a place as any.

I'd like to add that I'm keenly aware how lucky I am to be able to find almost everything I want here, except maybe Indian food and a miniature golf course. I realize Fred Meyer is a new addition. I know that until recently, powdered milk and cheese in a can were the only dairy for miles. I get it: if I want more roads, I should move down south. (Similarly, I understand that some people like the Tongass big, wet and wild, while others prefer it small, dry and paved.)

Now, I moved here from a place where you can purchase every imaginable good or service, and can have it delivered to you at any hour, even on Christmas. That's actually part of why we left New York; it's the same reason we ultimately decided against staying in the greater Anchorage area. We'd rather live in a town that supports more public radio stations than fast food chains.

Still, especially if you're a transplant, there are certain facts to embrace about Juneau in order to love it. Right up there with rain, potholes and no vindaloo/putt-putt: If you want selection, you're "SOL"- Standing On Line (to board a plane for Seattle or Anchorage). What? Does that expression also stand for something else?

Lately this seems to be changing. We've got a Costco, we've got a Wal-Mart- a diminutive, not-nearly-as-frightening Wal-Mart, but a Wal-Mart nonetheless. And now we've got a Mattress Ranch.

Actually, it's not so much a ranch as a temporary PFD sale outlet at the Nugget Mall crammed full of off-brand mattresses, packing material and Ted Sadtler bobble-head dolls-oh, yes, Ted Sadtler is here, too, and he brought the bobble-head dolls.

To be fair, the other Mattress Ranch locations - across from JC Penney's Warehouse on Arctic, is where one is - don't look like ranches either. But they've got cartoon cows on the wall and nothing says "ranch" like cartoon cows. Of course, nothing says "Ben & Jerry's" like cartoon cows, either. I'm pretty sure Alaska's other Uncle Ted ripped them off. I'm also pretty sure neither Ben nor Jerry, nor the huge food conglomerate that now owns them, has the slightest idea of the blatant copyright infringement he's committing. On the national scale, Ted Sadtler is a small patty in a remote corner of a huge dung-strewn pasture.

In-state, however - and let's face it, some of the stuff that goes on here defies understanding by the Lower 48, no matter how many times it reads Sarah Palin's memoir - he's a huge star. This owes mostly to his TV commercials: bizarre, rambling, obnoxious, amateurish yet overdone, confusing but strangely thought-provoking. He lip-synchs badly; he dances worse than that; he waves around a giant sheaf of cash - does that mean you'll save cash, or cram his fists full of it?

We all have our favorites. "Have heard of Tempur-Pedic?" he poses in one. "It's an excellent product. I do not carry this product." Or maybe the one where he operates a giant puppet of himself, or introduces his dog, or introduces the giant puppet of his dog. Myself, I like the ones where he tries to sneak in a philanthropic appeal for cystic fibrosis amidst promises of beating the competition. That's huevos, man. Heuvos rancheros.

How I longed to meet the creative force behind these ads. Just my luck, we needed a new bed. My wife is small. Powerfully-built, with dagger-speed and catlike reflexes, but small. I'm quite a bit bigger. How big? You know how people smuggle drugs across the border by swallowing condoms filled with cocaine? I can probably handle a whole cartel's-worth.

Naturally, I headed off to the ranch. Meeting Ted Sadtler was like meeting a celebrity, if that celebrity was a 6-foot, 7-inch megalomaniacal mattress magnate wearing acid-wash jeans jacked up to the middle of his Sponegebob tie. And he's an extremely nice guy - he loves Juneau, he loves the glacier, he's having fun, Tempur-Pedic is a great product, and he does not carry this product. Sadly, the phone rang right as I was about to ask him how he comes up with his commercials.

But in a way, I'm glad he didn't divulge the secret. For whatever reason, his commercials are strangely mesmerizing, and half of the magic is not knowing how it's done. The other half, of course, is misdirection. If selling a mattress to someone who originally started out wanting to help fight cystic fibrosis isn't misdirection, what is?

At the end of the day - actually, about 10 minutes later - I decided I'd rather buy a real Tempur mattress from the one licensed dealer in town. But at least l had a choice. And freedom of choice feels good, doesn't it?

So thank you, Ted Sadtler. I hope you decide to bring your whole crazy deal to Juneau permanently. Now if only Cal Worthington would move into the old Gottshalks ...

• Geoff Kirsh lives in Juneau. His column appears every other week.