There used to be this thing called a waterbed that a lot of people
had until they discovered it is not too comfortable to sleep on a
water balloon when someone else is. Waves, waves were the problem. My
parent's waterbed was great for jumping on from the loft until my
sister ruined it by trying to do a flip and breaking the frame of the
bed with her back. It was still useful, to me at least, as a passive
aggressive vent for my anger. I had discovered that when my dad was
making me really angry that I could use a little trick to pay him
back short of confrontation which was not and is not my favorite way
to do battle. If I thought that my dad's behavior merited some
punishment I would find him guilty in my private trial and sentence
him to one wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-soggy, and then
dutifully execute that sentence. Waterbeds have a floating wave
suppressor that keeps the pressure off the top of the bladder when no
one is on it so the trick is to take a fine puncturing device,
finding a good spot about halfway down his side where he would lay
and make a tiny hole which would not leak right away. In the night,
however, as my dad's not inconsiderable mass was pressing down on the
bed the leak would start so slowly, so very slowly. In the middle of
the night there would finally be enough water to be perceptible and
would wake him up and force him to go get a towel to sleep on until
he could fix another leak in the morning. He couldn't figure out why
only his side of the bed leaked. I never admitted that I was the bed
popper until I was in my mid-twenties and both my mother and father
were a little upset about how many nights their bed had leaked a
little and kept them up but they also found it humorous and it did clear up a persistent mystery. The statute of limitations was up anyway so
their hands were tied.
