Drip, drip, drip...

For the last twenty or so years I have slept on a waterbed. Yeah I know I should have grown up many years ago but stay with me.
When I first got married back in the 80's waterbeds were all the rage. My wife and I however went conventional and bought a standard queen size matress and box springs to start our house. However not long after that we developed a hatred toward that matress and box springs. If I remember we bought it used, and we were starting to figure out why its previous master released it. My mother though was dealing with arthritis and the queen size waterbed she had was bothering her joints so we agreed to a trade. We took over our parts, swapped out with her and soon we were floating on a bed of water, warm water to be precise. It was one of those bladder type waterbeds where if your spouse was sleeping too close to the edge, you could actually send them flying out of the bed with a well timed flop. We absolutely loved that bed, it was warm as soon as you got in, soft as a pillow and the gentle waves lulled you to sleep. Waterbed 1.0 was great, then we got a pair of cats.
Yeah those cats ran through our bed one night while we were sleeping and we awoke with wet sheets from about a hundred claw marks that had penetrated the bladder. It is never a good thing to wake up feeling wet and cold in your own bed. It brings back bad memories of childhood that no one wants to relive. Well that was the end of that water bed, waterbed 1.0 died so we went searching for another bed.
What we found filled our hearts with joy. My brother in law was moving and decided he did not want to move his KING size soft side waterbed and offered it to us. It was the best of both worlds!! It was WATERBED 2.0! The hard wooden sides that greeted you every morning with a smack to your ankles or cut into your thighs as you manuvered yourself out of waterbed 1.0 had been replace with soft foamy edges on the 2.0 model. The free floating bladder from model 1.0 had been enhanced with some kind of foam in the middle that made bed 2.0 "waveless". Now I will tell you in just certain situations a flop from enormous heights still will create enough of a wave in a waveless waterbed that is capable of spilling your spouse right out into the floor. But the smaller waves of just rolling over disappeared overnight with that magical foam. The other great thing about this bed was it took standard size sheets. No longer did we have to shop at "Waterbeds R Us" to get our sheets. No longer would we awake in the night to find the sheets had slipped off and we were laying on a cold plastic filled zip lock bag. We could shop at normal stores, buy those neat frilly sheets that were in style today and they fit like a glove. We were so happy... and then it happened.
We had our first experience with a leak late one night many years into our ownership of waterbed 2.0. We probably had that bed at least 10 years before we ever had a leak. It had this thick cover that wrapped around the entirity of the bladder so cat claws would never come near to penetrating the liquid filled center. It was made of such thick plastic I actually considered putting some goldfish in there so they could swim around. It would be so cool to actually sleep in an aquarium. Of course my wife would never go for that, it would freak her out knowing that she was sleeping actually WITH the fishes!!
So it came as a shock to me when we first experienced a leak in waterbed 2.0. I remember waking up in the middle of the night feeling cold and clammy. As I laid there I realized that I was wet from chest to toe. My first instinct was that I must have had an "accident". I know, I know, I was at this time in my mid 30's, mature and still the first thought I had was that I had wet the bed. As I laid there, cold and wet I suddenly realized that I really had to go to the bathroom, and if I had to go to the bathroom then I could not have wet the bed. It was then that the most horrible thought came to my mind. My thirty something wife must have wet the bed and I am laying in HER "accident".
As a young child I always had to share a room with someone. And because of that sharing my brothers and I always had bunk beds. You know where I am going with this, but don't jump to far ahead. There is a reason why the OLDER sibling always gets the top bunk. There is nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night to the feeling of rain falling on your body. Nothing worse except when you realize that you are indoors, and that is not rain that is falling.
So as I laid there, cold and clammy in my wife's "accident" I did what every husband, father, and grown man would do. I yelled at the top of my lungs, "YUCKKKKKKKK!!! YOU WET THE BED!!!!" which immediately waked my wife who was still sound asleep. as I jumped out of bed my hasty exit created another problem. You see in a water bed, the heavier of the two individuals displaces more of the bladder's water creating a hole or a depression in the bed. That hole or depression will collect andy and all liquids that are on top of the vinyl bladder of the bed. As I rolled out of the bed the depression that I had been causing was suddenly no longer there and the water quickly found the depression that my wife was now occupying, soaking her from chest to toe as well. She quickly awoke only to tell me she had not had an "accident" ("Yeah right" I thought to myself) and that I was a moron for thinking that of her. Actually she did not call me a moron, I added that part as that was what I thought of myself after I falsely accused her of being a five year old with a bladder problem. Anyway after a night on the couch (both of us) we discovered what had happened was that somehow something sharp had slipped down between the bladder and the soft edge of the bed and poked a hole in the bladder. We did a patch job on that hole the next day, dried out the covers and had a good laugh at our "accident" and went back to enjoying our waterbed 2.0.
That is until this last Monday. I had to catch an early flight that day so I was getting up early anyway but I was not planning on getting up quite that early. About 4:45 AM I heard the distinct sound of "drip", "drip", drip" which I chalked up to an early morning thunderstorm. But then I realized that the sound of this drip was not falling from the gutters outside but sounded like it was coming from inside the house. Since we had just finished remodeling out master bathroom I just knew that we must have broken a hose or the sink faucet had sprung a leak. My thoughts were derailed though when I put my foot upon the floor and found the carpet to be cold and clammy and really really wet. Not just soak it up with a towel it will be OK wet but water standing on the floor wet this is a sinking ship wet. It was then that I realized waterbed 2.0 was out for the count. I grabbed a towel and tried to stop the outflow of its precious liquids but it was beyond what I could repair. As I began to gather my things to quickly put it out of its misery and as humanely as possible drain its remaining fluids this thought caused me to choke up. My days as a waterbed owner were coming to an end. No, I would never again be lulled to sleep by the slow rocking of the waves, or have the opportunity to fling my wife out onto the floor with a well timed flop. No, that morning as I drained the last of its still warm water from its radidly deflating shell I realized that I had finally grown up, no more waterbeds for us. Sleep is too precious a commodity now than to wake up wet, cold and clammy every so often. But it was sure fun while it lasted.