Cancer Takes a Point

We have a grown-up bed now.

I argued for years to keep our waterbed. Kevin didn't keep up an ongoing nag about replacing it (which shows he doesn't understand the first thing about nagging, but does understand a lot about compromise) but every once in a while when we were repairing yet another leak, he would suggest it might be time to move up from the 70's.

I loved the bed. It wasn't hard. It wasn't soft. It was just right. Warm to crawl into on a winter night and cool in the summer. Many winter nights I crawled in between those sheets and thanked God right out loud for warm waterbeds. It's one of His better efforts.

With increasing age and an overall creeping up of the scales, the waterbed had become a little risky. On several late nights Kevin had dropped on his side rather than easing in and the resulting tsunami nearly pitched me to the floor. My tossing and turning at night came close to giving Kev motion sickness from the answering waves.

With his surgery and recovery looming I knew it was time to say goodbye to my youth. I was pretty certain we wouldn't be able to get him up from the waterbed post-surgery. And I knew he wouldn't rest well with my every movement casuing a mini-tidal rush on his side of the bed.

Kevin put up a 2 minute supportive front of pretending he didn't want me to make the sacrifice--and then he happily escorted me into the mattress store where we bounced, stretched and pretended to sleep on a dozen different combinations.

Buying a mattress is worse than buying a car. And takes twice as long. I agreed to go to one store. Only one. No driving around to sit on thirty different mattresses knowing we would forget what felt like what and where. One store. And the clinching criteria was that it had to be delivered before mid-week. Even with deciding quickly and paying cash the salesman managed to stretch the experience over several hours. I think he wanted us to feel we were getting a lot of attention for our money. Looks to me like it cost about $300 an hour to buy a mattress, box spring and a lot of chit-chat.
Throw in another hundred bucks for sheets and pillow cases. Hey, I bought the nice 600 thread count stuff. I'm entitled to some compensation for relinquishing a piece of my youth.

The destruction of our waterbed went well into the night. Who remembered it had so many pieces and parts? If I had known how nastily dusty and dank smelling it was in the nether regions of a waterbed, the thing would have been gone long ago.

So the remaining symbol of young and crazy days is piled up alongside the garage until time permits its end on a suitable pyre at my sister's farm. We are the proud owners of our first grown-up bed together.

So cancer takes this point. The waterbed is gone.