The Coolest Thing I Will Never See Again
Posted: July 27th, 2009, 10:27 pm
The Coolest Thing I Will Never See Again
About nine years ago I popped our waterbed with my elbow. Our thirteen year-old was then three, and he had an earache that night. He had knocked weepily at our door and we had all three just settled ourselves all in together when I decided to roll over, using my elbow for leverage on the old, in hindsight, brittle bag that was the mattress. Pop. My elbow dropped through to the boards below. Oh shit. I knew this could not be good, what was about to happen, was happening. Instantly my son was laying in water coming over his ears. My wife and I both grabbed for him, basically levitated out of bed simultaneously, and then I leapt to grab the area of the burst and lift it to where it was not puking out water any longer, and just stood there, or leaned there, my knees braced painfully against the suddenly-not-nearly-padded-enough rail of the bed-frame, and wondered what the fuck I was gonna do now. I looked to Susan, who held our son in her arms and stood there nearby, and we both just laughed. We laughed and laughed and laughed. We laughed like people who have lost it, for we pretty much had. The trouble in our marriage was at it's worst then. We were barely hanging on and this just seemed like the culmination, the as-much-as-we-could-take of it all. But there was no one to be blamed. Neither one of us could get mad at the other. We could only laugh and laugh like people who have become unhinged, and try not to go too crazy. I asked her tearfully to set Sean down so she could hold up the tear while I went outside to get the hose. I thought I might try to siphon it out the window, knowing that would take way too long. We had to sleep tonight. We didn't have time for it to siphon, and we couldn't just take turns holding this tattered hole above the water level all night long.
I got a siphon going out the second story window. We drained enough out to be able to secure the torn part to where it wouldn't leak, and we all three bedded down on the floor. It was a nightmare. The next day was like a hangover, but without the effects of residual toxicity at least.
The really cool part was the day after that, a Saturday. I was trying to figure out the easiest way to get this thing out of my bedroom. It was a total wreck. One of those wave-free waterbed mattresses, which means it was all full of this cotton-like shit There was no way I was gonna like drain it out like a bag of water or anything. I'd have to basically spoon it out into a bucket with a saucepan or something. God, that would take all morning. Then it hit me. The corner farthest away from the break was right at window level. Holding the tear above water, I moved over by the window, opened it. There was already no screen. Feeling a giddy I-can't-believe-I'm-gonna-do-this feeling, I strenuously lifted with one hand a corner of the bag and jerked it in little increments to where it was sort of like hanging out the window part way. Pulling up even further on the torn part in my hand served to make water rush over the lip of the windowsill, which was flush with the padded rail of the bedframe, and fill the corner that was hanging out the window. My God, I thought. This was going to work. The corner out the window was swelling like a teardrop, like a drip on the end of a faucet. It was growing, growing. In the space of about two seconds the part of the mattress in my hands went from nearly impossible to lift to yanking itself right out of my hands and flinging out the window. I stuck my head out and looked down just in time to see the whole big blue wad make one graceful slow-motion turn in the mid-air below me and strike the front porch steps.
The most gigantic water-balloon you ever saw. The splash, it was the most stupendous thing I've ever seen. It made a cone of water arching from my front porch steps all the way out to the street. It encompassed my entire yard. It was perfectly symetrical, if only a part of the complete circle. For some reason it was so beautiful to me. When it hit, I felt so elated, so joyous. I realized as it happened that I would never see anything like this again, that most people never would, that it was truly a once in a lifetime experience. It was beautiful. I cherished it in that moment, and for some reason, as I leaned out the window there on my hands and knees in the empty box of our broken bed and watched the water shatter itself into a million freefalling spheres before flooding the yard, I decided I would keep this, tell no one, keep this one to me. A sort of a secret delight. Until recently. I've told a couple of people this summer. And yesterday I posted it in response to a thread on another site. I've been thinking for some time about blogging on it, so there it is. Here you go. I give to you my secret, cherished memory of the coolest thing I will never see again.
(from my old Xanga site)
Peace,
Barry
About nine years ago I popped our waterbed with my elbow. Our thirteen year-old was then three, and he had an earache that night. He had knocked weepily at our door and we had all three just settled ourselves all in together when I decided to roll over, using my elbow for leverage on the old, in hindsight, brittle bag that was the mattress. Pop. My elbow dropped through to the boards below. Oh shit. I knew this could not be good, what was about to happen, was happening. Instantly my son was laying in water coming over his ears. My wife and I both grabbed for him, basically levitated out of bed simultaneously, and then I leapt to grab the area of the burst and lift it to where it was not puking out water any longer, and just stood there, or leaned there, my knees braced painfully against the suddenly-not-nearly-padded-enough rail of the bed-frame, and wondered what the fuck I was gonna do now. I looked to Susan, who held our son in her arms and stood there nearby, and we both just laughed. We laughed and laughed and laughed. We laughed like people who have lost it, for we pretty much had. The trouble in our marriage was at it's worst then. We were barely hanging on and this just seemed like the culmination, the as-much-as-we-could-take of it all. But there was no one to be blamed. Neither one of us could get mad at the other. We could only laugh and laugh like people who have become unhinged, and try not to go too crazy. I asked her tearfully to set Sean down so she could hold up the tear while I went outside to get the hose. I thought I might try to siphon it out the window, knowing that would take way too long. We had to sleep tonight. We didn't have time for it to siphon, and we couldn't just take turns holding this tattered hole above the water level all night long.
I got a siphon going out the second story window. We drained enough out to be able to secure the torn part to where it wouldn't leak, and we all three bedded down on the floor. It was a nightmare. The next day was like a hangover, but without the effects of residual toxicity at least.
The really cool part was the day after that, a Saturday. I was trying to figure out the easiest way to get this thing out of my bedroom. It was a total wreck. One of those wave-free waterbed mattresses, which means it was all full of this cotton-like shit There was no way I was gonna like drain it out like a bag of water or anything. I'd have to basically spoon it out into a bucket with a saucepan or something. God, that would take all morning. Then it hit me. The corner farthest away from the break was right at window level. Holding the tear above water, I moved over by the window, opened it. There was already no screen. Feeling a giddy I-can't-believe-I'm-gonna-do-this feeling, I strenuously lifted with one hand a corner of the bag and jerked it in little increments to where it was sort of like hanging out the window part way. Pulling up even further on the torn part in my hand served to make water rush over the lip of the windowsill, which was flush with the padded rail of the bedframe, and fill the corner that was hanging out the window. My God, I thought. This was going to work. The corner out the window was swelling like a teardrop, like a drip on the end of a faucet. It was growing, growing. In the space of about two seconds the part of the mattress in my hands went from nearly impossible to lift to yanking itself right out of my hands and flinging out the window. I stuck my head out and looked down just in time to see the whole big blue wad make one graceful slow-motion turn in the mid-air below me and strike the front porch steps.
The most gigantic water-balloon you ever saw. The splash, it was the most stupendous thing I've ever seen. It made a cone of water arching from my front porch steps all the way out to the street. It encompassed my entire yard. It was perfectly symetrical, if only a part of the complete circle. For some reason it was so beautiful to me. When it hit, I felt so elated, so joyous. I realized as it happened that I would never see anything like this again, that most people never would, that it was truly a once in a lifetime experience. It was beautiful. I cherished it in that moment, and for some reason, as I leaned out the window there on my hands and knees in the empty box of our broken bed and watched the water shatter itself into a million freefalling spheres before flooding the yard, I decided I would keep this, tell no one, keep this one to me. A sort of a secret delight. Until recently. I've told a couple of people this summer. And yesterday I posted it in response to a thread on another site. I've been thinking for some time about blogging on it, so there it is. Here you go. I give to you my secret, cherished memory of the coolest thing I will never see again.
(from my old Xanga site)
Peace,
Barry
Thank you for sharing, I could almost imagine...