Aqua Schlafen

There used to be a TV ad for Big Sur Waterbeds that had a thoughtful voice over intoning: "You know, I always imagined myself as a flight attendant for a major airline, but I never dreamed I would be sleeping on a waterbed." For me, it was never exactly that way. It was, in fact, quite the opposite.
I never harbored any kind of desire to be a flight attendant, but I was an enthusiastic supporter of waterbeds. I can still remember the first one I ever saw. It was in the bedroom of one of the Mikes who lived in the cabin across the road from ours in the mountains above Boulder. As kids we were allowed to wander over into their hippie den with mild impunity, since our parents didn't seem like narcs. When I first sat on Mike's bed (or was it Michael's?), I made sure to keep my feet on the floor. I was unsure about just how much of my pre-teen weight this bag of water might support. What I remember most was the hollow sloshing sound it made with every movement.
This sound was echoed just a few years later in the basement room of my friend Doug, whose brother had bequeathed him his old waterbed. It was essentially a sandbox with a vinyl water balloon laying in the center. Like many beds of its era, it rested directly on the floor, with a special set of sheets that invariably ended up as a twisted knot over the course of a night's sleep. It was this box that gave me a direction. I would own my own waterbed.
This proved to be somewhat more daunting than I had initially suspected. Even though my parents were very hip (the listened to Odetta) and were most decidedly not narcs, they expressed some doubts about my sleeping on a waterbed. The edge of the envelope was being breached, and it was decided that if I was serious about this waterbed thing, that I should have to raise the money and buy it for myself.
After a long summer of mowing lawns in a trailer park (a horrifying story all on its own), I had raised the one hundred and eighty-nine dollars needed for the frame, the mattress, the heater, one set of sheets, heater, and in a flurry of advancements, a platform upon which the whole thing sat. I remember snaking the hose through the window in my bathroom and into my bedroom, listening to the rush of sweet dreams as they filled the mattress. I knew that the heater would never make it comfortable enough to sleep on the first night, but I couldn't resist. I convinced myself that I would be asleep in minutes as the flotation system rocked me into golden slumber. It was not the best night of sleep, but it was important for me to save face, and so I put a happy face on it.
Over the next several years, that bed moved with me to my first apartment, and then was replaced by a more "conventional" frame that had the bag of water sitting inside a foam frame, creating the illusion of a regular mattress. When all was said and done, I had spent a decade of my non-waking life on a waterbed. I learned to savor its warmth on cold winter nights. I learned to despise its wavy ways on those nights when I arrived home drunk. I learned to love the looks I got from girls when they heard that I had my own waterbed. I finally grew tired of all the maintenance: algae treatments, using a pool cue across the surface to chase the bubbles to the open nozzle.
I never imagined that I would be a fourth grade teacher, but I always dreamed that I would sleep on a real bed again.