End of an Era

Heavenly Blue Morning Glory

When it rains, it pours so the saying goes. Most of yesterday we had freezing rain on and off that continued into the early hours today. I had just settled into bed when I heard a dripping sound. At first I thought it was just the way the ice pellets were hitting the windows but then the rhythm was too consistent so I got up to investigate. Not finding any obvious drips I kept following the dripping sound around the bed and sure enough right by my husband's sleeping head, the waterbed was dripping! Of all times, the day before we are leaving on vacation. I quickly awoke him and we set to work. The leak was right on a seam so the chances of repairing were slim even if we could find the repair kit. So we propped up the spot with towels. I stripped the bed and got the drain kit while my husband braved the freezing rain to get a hose from the greenhouse. Once set-up we tried draining into the bathtub but that was just too slow since there was not enough gravity. Finally we took the screen out of one of the windows and hung the hose outside which sped up the process. With the mattress finally drained we gathered everything including the heater to toss out. Thank goodness we have a self inflatable queen size mattress so we put that into the frame, remade the bed and then crashed. It was only 3:30 am!

Things happen for a reason. Had the bed done this after we left, we would have come home to a real mess! Our bedroom is right over the tv room portion of the great room so there could easily have been a lot of damage. But what we found when we removed the heater was even scarier. The bottom of the heater had several rust spots, a good indication of a potential problem. I shudder to think of what could have happened! Someone in the big upstairs was surely looking out for us last night.

We've had a waterbed almost from the time we were married. In that time we've only had three leaks including this one. One resulted in a new mattress but this time we will likely consider alternatives. Leaks are never fun to deal with! It's an end of an era.