Goodybe to the Water Bed

When John floated the idea that we could do this crazy expat thing and move to Asia, I was less than thrilled. I'm not going to lie - I love my life in Northern Virginia. Great friends, wonderful family and reasons to be grateful from just about every angle. I humored him, tho. He has not been excited about his job for awhile, and after talking it through, a couple years overseas became a reasonable sacrifice. Plus, it seemed like a pretty good way to get rid of our bed.

We are one of the few people in America with a water bed. I hate the damn thing. It is hot, impossible to find sheets for, and since John outweighs me by at least 70 pounds I spend the lion's share of the night clinging to the wooden rail on the side in an effort to keep from rolling into him. John loves it. It is warm, the sheets bother him not one bit and he likes the spoon idea just fine, even after 26 years.

I told him one night in Virginia. over a glass of wine, that we may consider the possibility that the ol' water bed's days were numbered. How about we buy a nice Posturpedic that would suit us both and give up the ghost, I said. After all, we aren't 25 any more. He was obstinately opposed, sure that moving this behemoth would be no problem.

A problem it was. It was damaged in transit. A handyman showed up (without tools. but that is another blog post...) and tried to fix it. There was hammering, sawing and drilling going on in my room. He did the best he could. It seemed sturdy, but in Asia a waterbed is an oddity and they were not equipped to fill it. John and I tried, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, to do the job. Hoses in Singapore are prohibitively expensive and come without ends. The fitting we needed were inadvertantly left on the faucet in Virginia (not by me!) and there was no such replacement here. We shopped. We lamented. We spent a week sleeping on Andrew's bed.

Finally, my dear husband relented. He and Phil carried the waterbed mattress down to the storage area and left it there. We bought a new conventional mattress and put it in the newly repaired bed frame. I bought new sheets and did a little happy dance.

This is the moment when the rubber hits the road. Those of you who are loyal to John can think of him every night as he laments the loss of his old buddy. You can play taps if you want to. Heck, send him a sympathy card. But for all you menopausal women out there who are no stranger to the hot flash, rejoice with me tonight as I spend my second night, in my own room, sleeping on a bed that I may make it through the night in without waking up once...