Going With The Flow

It has been delightful reading the many humorous antics of Janna and her family. The mouse adventure of Anna and her sister had me in tears! I think the funniest times are when we can laugh at ourselves. I do that quite often, but there is one time in particular that I would like to share, that may seem to be a bit too personal. I'll let you read past the title and judge for yourself….



I title this: "The time my husband and I got stuck in bed."

It all started with our move to North Dakota in the winter of 1992. By the time we got our house on the Air Base, the temperatures were below the freezing point. The Air Force moved us, so needless to say, some of our belongings were not in the most pristine condition. I was pleased to see that our King-sized waterbed was not too banged up. The woodwork was fine, and the mattress was neatly folded… but wait… let me stop a moment to explain an important part of this story.

When folding a waterbed bladder, one must ensure that the water is drained thoroughly. This one was indeed drained…. however, how thoroughly--- is still up for debate. The problem here is not so much that all of the water was not out, nor that it was folded, but that it had been stored in below freezing temperatures!

All was well until a bright young man from the moving company thought he'd be helpful and unfold that carefully frozen mattress.

Yeah, you guessed correctly! That plastic, or rubber… or whatever a bladder is made out of, will indeed crack under those conditions. A benefit to this saga is that at least the water remained inside the mattress--- since it was SOLID!

Ok, so this is where the fun began! After obtaining a new King size waterbed mattress ---since the old one was obviously out of commission, we were most eager to get our warm comfy bed set up. It was late in the evening, and we had just gotten all of the children (ages 6, 7 and 9) to bed.

My hubby had a hose connected to the new waterbed spout and had been filling the bed for quite some time so we were certain that we could use it that night. We went to check on the already half full bed when we realized that he had failed to place the heater pad under the mattress. NO ONE sleeps on a waterbed that does not have a good running heater under the mattress!

Well, I am not sure how much a half filled waterbed bladder weighs, but it was much more than we could lift in order to get a 2x4 foot pad in place correctly.

My husband actually thought we should wait a night and correct the error, but I am not one to willingly sleep on a cold water balloon in the winter! Reason won over and we began the painful step of draining the bed.

My dear husband had to siphon the water from the bedroom, down the hallway and up into the bathtub – a good 15 feet away. It was slow going, because we really didn't have gravity or force on our side.

Not being the most patient people in the world, we tried pushing on the mattress, sitting on it, and of course every ten minutes, we attempted to pull and wrestle with the corner to get that-- now much hated heating pad underneath that huge, partially filled water balloon! But all this effort was to no avail. This was going to take time!

Thinking we were now more than patient, not having checked the bed in at least 15 minutes, we decided that unless we did something as a team effort, we would never get to bed, so one of us came up with a brilliant idea! (I say that because the idea was mine!)

Here was the plan…

We climbed into the bed, placed our backsides against the headboard, and plotted that at the count of three, we could wedge our feet on the edge of the mattress, and push out long enough, for me to use my agile skills and slip the pad in perfectly where it needed to be. We talked it through and finally carried out the plan.

On the count of number "three", and with both of us perhaps a bit too eager… we started pushing our legs straight forward--- only to experience the largest, Hawaii Five O wave in North Dakota history!

It brought so much shock and awe, that the pad was completely forgotten and the only thing in our minds was a slow-motioned response of, "OOOOHHHH NOOOOO!", as we feared that our man-made wave would go right over the edge of the bed and blop on to the floor!

We were instantly relieved to see that the huge water blob hesitated just a moment and then changed direction, before it immediately returned. Our relief was short lived! We not only forgot to put the pad back in; we also forgot to retract our legs! All of the weight of that man made tsunami, was now firmly trapping us BOTH -- from the waist down. We were indeed stuck. No hope of bending our knees to even wriggle out.

Dumbfounded, we looked at each other as if to gain some wisdom, for a new plan. After all of that, we knew we were out of luck. Now we were faced with some new choices… We could sit there until the water drained or call 911.

Neither of us thought the 911 idea was palatable, so we opted to wait. We waited…. and after a while, the thought occurred to us that we could possibly have ruined our siphoning system when we created the tsunami. We again tried with all of our strength to get free, but couldn't. So, we began to beckon our oldest and most responsible child, Chad, from his bed. It took a few minutes to resurrect the boy, but finally our rescuer came.

We asked him to check the hose in the tub to see if water was still coming out of it. He padded down the hall to check. After a pause, I hollered.. "Don't pick up the hose!" We heard a clank… it was too late, he had already lifted the end to check it.

Somewhere deep inside of my husband and myself, laughter began! We wondered if we would end up on one of those TV shows about stupid things people do, or a funniest video program. Chad ensured us that he thought there was water still coming out, but a 9 year old is difficult to trust in moments like that, so after much laughter, and devout determination not to be on one of those shows, I began to inch my skinny self over to the side of the bed frame. I figured that perhaps I could wedge myself along the edge and get to freedom. Mark helped by pulling my edge toward him… and finally I was free--- which enabled me to free him! 

The waterbed has now been replaced by a traditional bed and we have never--- since that time, found ourselves in such a predicament! However, it was a moment of humor that we often laugh about. I learned that my ideas are not always the best, but what a dear husband I have to think they are and to help me with my plans! We are still a team, and we are both thankful for the fun times we have shared.

Best of all, we are both a bit more patient and much wiser now in our older years…and my…oh so thankful that we still have our legs!

There is humor to be found in many of life's hardest moments!

Hope you too, can find them.