A mattress store advertisement in Texas created controversy last week after video of the commercial was posted on the web. 

The commercial is from Miracle Mattress, located in San Antonio, Texas.

The 18-second ad features three people — one woman and two men — standing in front of a stack of Twin Tower style mattresses, an obvious attempt to recreate the two towers hit by hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001. The commercial states, “Right now, you can get any size mattress for a twin price.”

In the commercial, the woman asks for a better way to remember 9/11 than with a twin mattress sale. The commercial advertises getting any sized mattress for a “twin price.”

The woman then exclaims, “Storewide sale all day long,” and extends her arms, “hitting” the two men, who then scream and pretend they are falling into the Twin Tower mattresses, as if to recreate the collapse of the World Trade Center. The woman screams as the men “fall.”

The ad concludes with the woman calmly saying “We’ll never forget.”

Up until the moment when the two men are “pushed” into the World Trade Center mattress recreation, the ad is fine. There is no real problem with having a sale on 9/11, though some could see it as being in poor taste.

However, the second the ad attempts to recreate the terror attacks by trying to be funny, the commercial becomes repugnant. That recreation is totally unacceptable and is an insult to the 2,977 people who died as a result of the attacks. 

In addition, the “We’ll never forget” at the end of the commercial adds insult to injury. It feels more like the store was saying, “We just made fun of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, but we’ll never forget that it happened.” That is absolutely offensive. 

The owner of Miracle Mattress posted an attempt at an apology on its Facebook page. Owner Mike Bonnano claimed the video was posted on Facebook without his knowledge or approval from the company’s corporate office in Houston.

“I say this unequivocally, with sincere regret: the video is tasteless and an affront to the men and women who lost their lives on 9/11,” Bonnano wrote in a statement posted as an image on the Facebook page. 

A day later, the Miracle Mattress store announced it would close its doors indefinitely. 

While nothing can take back the horrific choice to air that advertisement, it is smart for the company to close. Perhaps next time the owner will remember to examine a commercial like that before it goes public.