Jean Meets the Waterbed
Jean arrived home
from her night shift job as a nurse in an intensive care unit, tired and weary.
Her red hair was disheveled, her makeup had long since worn off and her eyes
were red and droopy. She flipped a stray hair back from her eyes as she slipped
her shoes off, muttering to herself, "Boy I’m getting too old for this jazz. My
back aches and I am so darn tired!" She sipped at the coffee that her father,
Earl had poured for her and tears started to well up as she whined some more
about how her feet and back hurt.
Earl was beside
himself and frustrated, trying to help her through this traumatic period of her
life. "Damn Dan," he thought, "29 years ago he promised to care for her always.
Now look what he has done."
Jean dragged herself
and her collection of work items in a big bag behind her into bedroom muttering,
"See you when I get up Dad. We’ll go shopping later".
As the minutes
ticked by, Jean tossed and turned. No matter what I do she thought, I can’t get
used to sleeping alone! This bed feels like it has rocks in it!
After a few hours of
this she got up and stumbled into the living room. Earl sat there with a smug
look on his face and said, "Come on honey, I want to go to a new store!"
As they got into the
car she said, "Where to Pop?"
"I think the store
is over near the restaurant, the name is Splash."
"What in the world
is that?!", Jean retorted.
"You’ll see!" was
his only answer.
As they pulled into
the parking lot, Jean thought what is this all about? But dutiful daughter as
she was, she just followed him into the store.
It turned out to be
a waterbed store. Now all Jean knew about waterbeds would fit onto the top of a
postage stamp. But she was soon to find out a lot more than she expected!
They looked at them
all and Earl settled on sort of a starter model which was to be delivered the
next day. A full motion thing, complete with heater and new sheets.
The next day the
monster arrived. The men set it up and told them when to turn the water off and
that it would be at least 2 days before it was warm enough to sleep in. Now
remember said the man as he left "Remember M’am, keep a close eye on the
filling. It will take a while but you do not want to overfill it! Then remember
to burp it before you close it up!"
Jean and Earl stood and
watched the mattress as if it was going to grow feet and walk off but made sure
that they did not overfill it and the heater was turned on and that they took a
broomstick and burped it as instructed.
The first struggle was with
making the bed. Try as she might, the sheets would just pop off. She tried
picking up the corners to stuff the corner in the sheet, no luck. One corner
would hold til the opposite corner was set then both would pop off. She
struggled and struggled, hair flying in the breeze, muttering choice words under
her breath. Huffing and puffing, like wrestling a big bear, she finally got them
in place and plopped down across the bed in sheer exhaustion.
She rolled over and
sunk into the edge between the mattress and the sides of the bed. "Ouch she
yelled! You damn thing are not going to get the best of me yet!"
"Struggling to crawl
out of this darned bed is like trying to mount a horse." Slowly she got one leg
free and popped it over the side. Then managed to get her arm free and pushed
herself up and plop fell on the floor!
Megan her college
student living at home snickered from the doorway. "Mom, that should have been
on video! This is the way you do it!"
"I’m glad I am a
good source for your glee," Jean laughed.
It wasn’t long
before she learned to stay in the middle of the bed and how to roll with enough
force to pop out of the bed without the same scene again.
Soon her older
daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren came to visit and they inherited the
waterbed for the stay.
Soon after they
left, Jean had gone to bed and felt the warm liquid on her hand the next
morning. What is this she thought, Did I wet the bed? After investigation, she
discovered she had not wet the bed, it had wet her!
This brought about a
phone call to "Splash" "There is a steady stream of water emitting from the bed
and not at a place where anyone had put any pressure! I’m wet and no place to
sleep!"
A chuckle was all
that was heard and the promise someone would be right out.
Well, the mattress
was changed and she went through the same old process again.
About 6 months
later, Jean went through the same process again, this time she learned the fine
art of repairing the water bed and life was good again.
After a few more
months went by, Jean and Earl bought a home together and they and Megan
proceeded to move in. She set up the waterbed again. This time only a few days
went by when she discovered another leak. This is ridiculous! She drained the
bed and went to another Splash store and told them her tale of woe. At their
suggestion, she bought the next step up mattress, but before setting it up took
duck tape to all the cracks around the frame and between the boards under the
mattress.
Then as she set
about refilling it, she sat in a chair and put her feet up and looked around at
her surroundings, trying to figure out how to arrange her computer and amateur
radio gear and drawing and sewing supplies. As she did so she dozed off and a
while later woke up to a strange noise, she glanced up and there was her
waterbed mattress looming like a giant water balloon, nearly touching the
ceiling!
Well, out the window
of her second story bedroom went the hose as it drained it back to its normal
size.
I do hear there have
been no more problems to date with the waterbed, and Jean will sometimes sit
back with a smug look on her face debating how she will handle her next battle
with the waterbed, should it ever come.
