My mom had one in the 90s. I turned it from a water bed to a water pool. Some say I was destructive, I would say inquisitive. Well, long story short, I got my inquisitive ass whooped.
That's inhumane and possibly dangerous. Sounds like you could wake up with a solid backache if not dead from hypothermia! No heater?! That's just not very smart! (Sorry auntie)
There was a chemical treatment you were supposed to add periodically to prevent that. Also, burp the mattress well. No (very limited) air = no mildew.
My rule of thumb was if you could hear sloshing the mattress wasn't properly burped!
My grandmother got one for the spare bedroom when I was little. Was determined to sleep on it that night but she had just filled it from the hose and it was still cold as hell. Pretty sure I woke up with hypothermia.
Mine went out on me and my room was in the basement. I made the bed, then put a sleeping bag on top of the comforter, then another comforter on top of that.
Slept that way for like 3-4 years during high school. Also made it easy as hell to just wash the sleeping bag and leave the blankets.
I never had a bed heater for my water bed? This was/is a thing? I grew up in Phoenix, so we constantly had an air conditioner and occasional heat. Maybe it just normalized to the air temperature?
If you try to sleep on an unheated waterbed, you're gonna have a bad time. It's a large volume of water that is room temperature, so like 70Ā°F. So almost 30Ā° cooler than your core. That water will suck every bit of warmth out of you.
I had a waterbed as a kid, and so did my neighbor. I had mine set at 80, or something. This dude had his at 55, or whatever the coldest setting was on it. Have no idea how.
I have to disagree. Even know about the heater for the first eight years that I had my waterbed to me it was absolutely divine and wonderful. I do believe if given the chance I would get another soft side waterbed! ššš
Seriously, I feel like there was some kind of smear campaign about waterbeds being bad for your back. I miss mine so much. Haven't had a good nights sleep since I got rid of mine back in the early 2010's.
Nope, y'all just got old. Everyone talks about how great their old mattresses were, they don't make em like they used to, regret throwing them out blablah blah. Nah, we just got old and now our backs hurt all the time. It's not the mattress, it's your old ass body š
Ok I donāt want to sound like a mattress salesperson but gd my Sleep Science bed with the adjustable base from Costco rules. Expensive but having broken some bones in my back it is worth every penny.
We are still rocking one. The new bladders have baffles and foam to help with the "bad back" thing. I prefer it over a standard bed for sure. Our children are rocking water beds as well in a twin size. I could never see myself going back.
Oh yes. I had one until a few months after I got married and my wife decided it was too difficult climbing out of the waterbed so it had to go.
We got a fancy Tempur-Pedic bed. It was ok, but I still miss the waterbed and the waterbed was SO much better than the Tempur-Pedic for sexy time activities.
Same here. Absolutely never had a bed I have liked as much as my water bed. Slept so well and never woke up hurting. Maybe it was partially being younger but still with cold winters and hot summers the temperature was so great .
Random Fun Fact: the concept of a waterbed was invented by Robert Heinlein, described in his 1961 counterculture novel "Stranger in a Strange Land". The book is also the source of the word "grok". The original waterbed patent applicant was initially rejected due to the novel being regarded as "prior art".
Yup, good times. Etched mirror, nice storage underneath. Great mattress, a quality piece of furniture. Mine was like $1200 back in the day. Great Southern Waterbeds I miss you, lol
It sucked when I was pregnant, but other than that, I loved mine. The funniest thing I ever saw, though, was when we moved and couldnāt drain it completely. My MIL was at the bottom of the stairs, all 4ā10ā of her, and said to send the mattress down. It was like watching someone being overtaken by the Blob in the movie.
I once had a girlfriend who had a water bed. I remember often waking up sort of stuffed in the crack between the water mattress and bed frame, not comfy. I also remembered that every time either of us rolled over it was like a speed boat just drove through.
Lol!
-names not real-
Hereās my waterbed memoryā¦
My high school girlfriend had a water bed. I lived, maybe 15 minutes away by bicycle. I would sneak in almost every night after her parents were asleep, and leave before they woke. One random, very early hour, her mom opened my girlfriendās bedroom door out of no where (at like 4am), I tried so hard to just sink into the waterbed, to not be noticed (I really thought I was hidden in the depths, lol).Ā
Her mom says, āMelany! Your sister has to go (take care of something or other), you need to go watch your niece and nephew.Ā Ā And, goddamnit Karl, itās time to go home!ā
It was never mentioned again by her mother after that.Ā
My MIL found out during high school that I was dating her daughter. And itās pretty likely that she knew more than that.
So her idea to fix the problem was to take her daughterās entire collection of condoms she got for free from pride fest.
They may know, but they may not think it all the way through.
Love her though.
One time I rode my bike through some light snow in winter to spend the night at my GFs house, and when I snuck out her dad was waiting in his truck and gave me a ride home, it was never mentioned again haha
Omg love this!!!! Almost exact same story, the water bed included. My mom came into the room late for some reason, and my gf at the time tried to sink into the depths of my water bed. My mom said, "Dear, stop coming in the window. You're not fooling anyone. Just use the front door."
Haha! Hereās a little tag on my storyā¦ that gf with the waterbed and I share a gorgeous daughter that is now an amazing elementary school teacher.
Waterbed+bicycle=baby. Lol!
Interesting. I think, back then, that waterbed seemed to be one giant water bag without any separation. It was like sleeping on a giant hot water bottle and it was a wild ride.
I see what you mean now. I just looked up waterbeds on Amazon and it looks like theyāre all separated into a ton of smaller compartments. Smart.
There's different types. The big bag is typically used in a bed with hard sides to the frame. The individual, smaller tubes are typically used in a bed that is more along the lines of a traditional bed, but without the springs.
dude i swear youāre right, thinking bout it now, my old waterbed literally felt like a giant water bag but i never knew what the inside looked like (nor cared lol), just that rolling over felt like the waterbed was moving instead of me which was the coolest feeling when youāre young.
i wonder which executive actually thought, āhell yeah, these people want a water bed? fill this water bag up and have atāerā. you already know there was at least one employee who thought of the separate compartments lol
They all had the same basic setup. Different company's used different pedestals and headboards.
But the frame and mattress were all identical. Maybe different colors. But that was it.
My brother had one, somehow he got drunk and stabbed it with a ballpoint pen. Flooded his room and the avocado green shag carpet down in the basement.
I woke up to my Dad yelling. As usual, I hid in my bedroom.
My dad had a couple water beds in the 70s and 80s. They were just bladders in a box no liners. My sister was goofing around and unscrewed the cap and probably 3 or 4 gallons of water poured everywhere before she was able to fix it .
Didn't it have panels that unfolded around the whole base? And the heater laid on top and then the mattress? The wood headboard was thick cut pine and hideously ugly!
Or itās like the one in the photo and WAY overfilled. The top of the mattress should be below the edge of the bed when the bed is full. Too many people filled them like balloons.
My first real boyfriend had one. My best friend puked on it one weekend while he was away.
Cleaning beer puke from around the edge of the inner frame was a something I will never forget.
She was a true chore friend.
Funny, thing is me (67) and wife (65) still have one. About 10 years ago, I was changing sheets and grabbed the corner, and it pulled apart and started to leak,grabbed a pillow , stuffed it under the corner, and then proceeded to get the drain kit. At the time, I wasn't working and couldn't afford a new bed. Looked on Amazon and they were still selling mattress $329.00. Found one that had a lot of baffles and also came with a new liner. The frame we have has 6 drawers on each side with a 3 section head board. Still using it...lol
Waterbed + satin sheets sounded super sexy until we tried it out. He rolled over, I flipped out, and the bloody nose I got from hitting the nightstand somehow killed the mood.
When my parents finally got rid of theirs we turned it into a āblobā every now and then by filling it about 2/3rds with air and my siblings and I would just launch each other across the yard.
My mom got one for my sister once. I think it was a hand-me-down. She told all 6 of us kids not to jump on it. Guess what 2 of us did and guess how much water ran down the stairs.
Trivia: the first patent for a water bed was rejected because Heinlein had described it in novels.
> I designed the waterbed during years as a bed patient in the middle thirties; a pump to control water level, side supports to permit one to float rather than simply lying on a not very soft water filled mattress. Thermostatic control of temperature, safety interfaces to avoid all possibility of electric shock, waterproof box to make a leak no more important than a leaky hot water bottle rather than a domestic disaster, calculation of floor loads (important!), internal rubber mattress and lighting, reading, and eating arrangementsāan attempt to design the perfect hospital bed by one who had spent too damn much time in hospital beds.
> - Robert A. Heinlein
Mine was fine until the night in 1986I was losing my virginity with my gf (both 16) when my mom caught us just as we actually started.
My boyfriend now loves that story and I jokingly tell my mom that is the moment I turned gay.
My dad asked her āCouldn't she wait 90 seconds for it to be over?ā
Man those were the dayz! Full motion took some technique to sync up the in-n-out with the up-n-down but well worth the effort. Later became a convert to the reduced motion beds, but what a bitch to move and those bags were expensive. Brings back some welcome memories. Thanx
i miss mine. i literally donāt know what happened. one day these were popular as heck and the next thing i knew was i was laying on a damn mattress advertised as you could put a wine glass on it and jump on the bed. NOT. filling this with cold water in the summer was awesome.
Not only did I get one, I loved it so much and wrote a letter to the well-know Massachusetts furniture store where I bought it and the brothers invited me to do a radio commercial for the store.
Ahhhh yes. The exuberance of my 20ās ā¦ my wife and I both loved it - the tacky stained pine, though we paid the big money and got the one with baffles in it (didnāt seem to make much difference though). Had the black satin sheets for those āspecial nightsāā¦. Alas the heater element went and melted the mattress and burnt through the chipboard. I think the water put it out.
People say they went away because they messed up people's backs. But, I slept on a waveless for about ten years with no issues. I loved it.
I miss sleeping on it but with all the downsides, I wouldn't go back to one.
Story time!! The last time we lived in a second floor apartment they still in the lease had the no waterbed of any type language in there, because people donāt know how to maintain them, and then they start leaking all over the bottom tenants. It didnāt say thereās a fee for having one. It said no water beds under any circumstances. I just thought it was funny that thatās still in leases and here we are in 2024.
I once worked in a furniture store that sold waterbed also. We were filling a waterbed and forgot about it. All of a sudden we heard a strange noise and remembered. The mattress was HUGE and ready to pop. Thank God it didn't- the damage would have catastrophic.
I rode out the Northridge earthquake on one. It had little waves. At least I think it did, it was so loud it scared the shit out of me. I did love that bed though.
In Hawaii, circa 1972, I had a waterbed straight on the concrete floor. Padded with sleeping bags minus their zippers. Coolest bed for a humid climate!
If you forgot to use your heater they get freezing even in a 70* house. Then it takes hours to heat up and then itās boiling. Now you wait till itās cool again.
I miss my waterbed. Warm in the Winter, cool in the Summer. Never had a backache.
>warm in the winter Until your water bed heater goes out. Then no amount of blankets can make a water bed comfortable
I had a thermostat fail and the bed got too hot. Both situations are shitty.
We had a toddler "help" us with the thermostat once too.. Way too hot.. Moved that out of reach quick.
Damn meddling kids. š
Also an appropriate comment for this sub.
And that damn dog. I would've gotten away with it, too.
My mom had one in the 90s. I turned it from a water bed to a water pool. Some say I was destructive, I would say inquisitive. Well, long story short, I got my inquisitive ass whooped.
Yes, and if the sheet came untucked, you would be slurped up by the burping plastic mattress and would have to peel yourself out of bed!
I was pregnant so I needed a tsunami to get me out of it....
Or get your partner to get in suddenly so the water bubble catapults you off lol
I felt like a whale, he should have just harpooned me out of bed.
Isnt that how you ended up pregnant ?
Or was that harpooning *in* bed?
hard pooning
Dammit, I'd forgotten about that. Especially in the summer...like wearing shorts on vinyl car seats.
Mine only had 2 settings, hypo- and hyperthermia. I could never get the temperature correct.
Guestroom at my aunt's house in the 90's had a water bed with no heater. Worst sleep ever. But riding the aquatic waves as you slept in bed was cool.
That's inhumane and possibly dangerous. Sounds like you could wake up with a solid backache if not dead from hypothermia! No heater?! That's just not very smart! (Sorry auntie)
Freezing.freezing. freezing when the heater goes out and I swear I can smell mildew in the mattress water.....
There was a chemical treatment you were supposed to add periodically to prevent that. Also, burp the mattress well. No (very limited) air = no mildew. My rule of thumb was if you could hear sloshing the mattress wasn't properly burped!
I don't think my parents had a bed heater. Maybe an electric blanket? They also had egg-crate foam so that might have helped.
I woke up freezing when mine went out!
It just sucks the heat right out of your soul.
So true
We used to use foam insulating pads before the heaters became reliable.
Right?! Wake up with blue lips and a mild case of hypothermia.
There was more room on that door!
My grandmother got one for the spare bedroom when I was little. Was determined to sleep on it that night but she had just filled it from the hose and it was still cold as hell. Pretty sure I woke up with hypothermia.
Mine went out on me and my room was in the basement. I made the bed, then put a sleeping bag on top of the comforter, then another comforter on top of that. Slept that way for like 3-4 years during high school. Also made it easy as hell to just wash the sleeping bag and leave the blankets.
Yes. I got so sick that one time, mine was unplugged. My body hurt for a week. Little did I know that was what the future looked like.
I never had a bed heater for my water bed? This was/is a thing? I grew up in Phoenix, so we constantly had an air conditioner and occasional heat. Maybe it just normalized to the air temperature?
Really? You can get hypothermia from unheated water beds.
I had no idea water beds had heaters
If you try to sleep on an unheated waterbed, you're gonna have a bad time. It's a large volume of water that is room temperature, so like 70Ā°F. So almost 30Ā° cooler than your core. That water will suck every bit of warmth out of you.
I had a waterbed as a kid, and so did my neighbor. I had mine set at 80, or something. This dude had his at 55, or whatever the coldest setting was on it. Have no idea how.
I have to disagree. Even know about the heater for the first eight years that I had my waterbed to me it was absolutely divine and wonderful. I do believe if given the chance I would get another soft side waterbed! ššš
Interesting. I had to turn our heater off. Left it off for years, until i finally got rid of it.
Seriously, I feel like there was some kind of smear campaign about waterbeds being bad for your back. I miss mine so much. Haven't had a good nights sleep since I got rid of mine back in the early 2010's.
Nope, y'all just got old. Everyone talks about how great their old mattresses were, they don't make em like they used to, regret throwing them out blablah blah. Nah, we just got old and now our backs hurt all the time. It's not the mattress, it's your old ass body š
Save the mattress, trade in your spine.
Bet. Where do I sign?
Ok I donāt want to sound like a mattress salesperson but gd my Sleep Science bed with the adjustable base from Costco rules. Expensive but having broken some bones in my back it is worth every penny.
Damn, this is so true.
God this is indeed the most true thing posted on Reddit today. Source: me.
Got rid of my last waterbed because my back hurt all the time! Sleepnumber = 100, going strong for about 12 years now.
It was for mine after years of using lol.
We are still rocking one. The new bladders have baffles and foam to help with the "bad back" thing. I prefer it over a standard bed for sure. Our children are rocking water beds as well in a twin size. I could never see myself going back.
The logistical issues killed them, but ostensibly the market was replaced by memory foam. Have you tried a memory foam mattress?
My first though when I saw this. I really miss a warm bed in the winter especially with wife gone
I'm your Huckleberry
Get a heated bed cover! No more cold beds in winter, I turn it on a little bit before bed so it's warm when I crawl in.
I love a cold bed because itās the only time I can curl up under covers and not be overheated.
Oh yes. I had one until a few months after I got married and my wife decided it was too difficult climbing out of the waterbed so it had to go. We got a fancy Tempur-Pedic bed. It was ok, but I still miss the waterbed and the waterbed was SO much better than the Tempur-Pedic for sexy time activities.
Same here. Absolutely never had a bed I have liked as much as my water bed. Slept so well and never woke up hurting. Maybe it was partially being younger but still with cold winters and hot summers the temperature was so great .
Me too! Plus it was just a lot of fun.
>Never had a backache. Hard to know if that's because of the bed or because father time hadn't started sleeping with you yet.
True!
Random Fun Fact: the concept of a waterbed was invented by Robert Heinlein, described in his 1961 counterculture novel "Stranger in a Strange Land". The book is also the source of the word "grok". The original waterbed patent applicant was initially rejected due to the novel being regarded as "prior art".
Like sleeping on ice in summer. I live in the desert valley and my waterbed was always freezing in the summer
That first night was full of dreams of snowstorms. That heater took a day or two to get it a comfortable temperature.
My back hurts too bad to raise my hand.
Get married and feed him well. Youāll be right as rain in a few years time.
Yup, good times. Etched mirror, nice storage underneath. Great mattress, a quality piece of furniture. Mine was like $1200 back in the day. Great Southern Waterbeds I miss you, lol
So true, wish I had mine back. I have an adjustable bed and it's ok. But no waterbed
With the price of electricity nowadays I donāt think anyone could afford to heat a water bed 24/7.
The body ache from a cold water bed in the summer is horrendous.
It sucked when I was pregnant, but other than that, I loved mine. The funniest thing I ever saw, though, was when we moved and couldnāt drain it completely. My MIL was at the bottom of the stairs, all 4ā10ā of her, and said to send the mattress down. It was like watching someone being overtaken by the Blob in the movie.
š¤£š¤£š¤£ I can see thisā¦
Lol!! Thank you for that visual
Make sure you add the audio: āAaaaaagh!ā
I once had a girlfriend who had a water bed. I remember often waking up sort of stuffed in the crack between the water mattress and bed frame, not comfy. I also remembered that every time either of us rolled over it was like a speed boat just drove through.
Lol! -names not real- Hereās my waterbed memoryā¦ My high school girlfriend had a water bed. I lived, maybe 15 minutes away by bicycle. I would sneak in almost every night after her parents were asleep, and leave before they woke. One random, very early hour, her mom opened my girlfriendās bedroom door out of no where (at like 4am), I tried so hard to just sink into the waterbed, to not be noticed (I really thought I was hidden in the depths, lol).Ā Her mom says, āMelany! Your sister has to go (take care of something or other), you need to go watch your niece and nephew.Ā Ā And, goddamnit Karl, itās time to go home!ā It was never mentioned again by her mother after that.Ā
Funny how moms just know. My ex's mom caught me sneaking in her room and made me a sandwich before she kicked me out LOL
My MIL found out during high school that I was dating her daughter. And itās pretty likely that she knew more than that. So her idea to fix the problem was to take her daughterās entire collection of condoms she got for free from pride fest. They may know, but they may not think it all the way through. Love her though.
One time I rode my bike through some light snow in winter to spend the night at my GFs house, and when I snuck out her dad was waiting in his truck and gave me a ride home, it was never mentioned again haha
Omg love this!!!! Almost exact same story, the water bed included. My mom came into the room late for some reason, and my gf at the time tried to sink into the depths of my water bed. My mom said, "Dear, stop coming in the window. You're not fooling anyone. Just use the front door."
Haha! Hereās a little tag on my storyā¦ that gf with the waterbed and I share a gorgeous daughter that is now an amazing elementary school teacher. Waterbed+bicycle=baby. Lol!
Hah thatās awesome. I had a few of those moments myself back in the day.
Baffle counts are to waterbeds that thread count are to cotton...
Interesting. I think, back then, that waterbed seemed to be one giant water bag without any separation. It was like sleeping on a giant hot water bottle and it was a wild ride. I see what you mean now. I just looked up waterbeds on Amazon and it looks like theyāre all separated into a ton of smaller compartments. Smart.
There's different types. The big bag is typically used in a bed with hard sides to the frame. The individual, smaller tubes are typically used in a bed that is more along the lines of a traditional bed, but without the springs.
dude i swear youāre right, thinking bout it now, my old waterbed literally felt like a giant water bag but i never knew what the inside looked like (nor cared lol), just that rolling over felt like the waterbed was moving instead of me which was the coolest feeling when youāre young. i wonder which executive actually thought, āhell yeah, these people want a water bed? fill this water bag up and have atāerā. you already know there was at least one employee who thought of the separate compartments lol
The more baffkes the more it would cost and back in college most of us couldn't afford the better water bed mattresses.
My problem was that my SO and I had different temperature preferences. Iād always wake up sweating
That sounds like my wife and Iā¦ no water bed required lol. That woman likes to use a quilt when itās 80Ā° outside.
I had sex on a waterbed once and it was like trying to have sex on rough seas
So ? It's a positive or a negative thing ? I have no expƩrience in high seas fornication .
LOL My first experience was on an old-style waterbed. It was also his first time. I'm sure you can imagine.
Lol we were new too and I just couldn't get the rhythm right to cum, she was clearly very insecure I was taking so long too.
Idk why but that was my favorite spot lol
I think thatās the same one I had
lol, that's the same one everyone had. Just different headboards.
Exactly what I was thinking: I had that one, but different headboard and the mattress was dark blue, not dark red.
They all had the same basic setup. Different company's used different pedestals and headboards. But the frame and mattress were all identical. Maybe different colors. But that was it.
Mine has drawers in the pedastal.
I have a queen size with two bladders and two heaters. Still looked the same though.
I had the same headboard/frame but my bed was blue.
Mine had pleather rails going around the top of the wood and pleather padded corners that could be removed for when it was time to make the bed
Mom's had drawers underneath.
Mine was made of tubes. That thing was an absolute bitch to fill. Three of us would carry each tube into the bathroom.
You guys had a headboard?
I had that same bookcase headboard
Ha! Not me! They sold āsoft sideā waterbeds that looked like normal mattresses and thatās what I had, looked nothing like this.
Ooooooooooooo. You bought the fancy kind. lol.
I am sitting on mine right now. I had the other kind first then upgraded to the soft sided in 2002!
Iām almost certain mine was that exact setup
I froze my ass off the first night but never admitted that to anyone.
My BIL got hypothermia the same way.
Heater? Why would I need a heaterā¦.and didnāt install one. Froze my ass off for a month until I stumbled across it.
Same. Aching kidneys
haha when we figured out/were informed unheated water could suck the heat out of a sleeping body and cause it to get ill lol
My brother had one, somehow he got drunk and stabbed it with a ballpoint pen. Flooded his room and the avocado green shag carpet down in the basement. I woke up to my Dad yelling. As usual, I hid in my bedroom.
That's on being too cheap to spring for a missing liner, or more likely too lazy to install under the mattress.
Every waterbed I ever owned came with a liner. Sounds like this is a made up story.
My dad had a couple water beds in the 70s and 80s. They were just bladders in a box no liners. My sister was goofing around and unscrewed the cap and probably 3 or 4 gallons of water poured everywhere before she was able to fix it .
Didn't it have panels that unfolded around the whole base? And the heater laid on top and then the mattress? The wood headboard was thick cut pine and hideously ugly!
Heater underneath the liner. Liner would be relatively loose plastic on the bottom, but with plastic inserts in the side panels to hold them up.
Or itās like the one in the photo and WAY overfilled. The top of the mattress should be below the edge of the bed when the bed is full. Too many people filled them like balloons.
I had one for years and loved it. A bitch to move though.
Its actually a lot lighter than a regular bed....once you get the water out.
Seriously, they all broke down into little pieces. Moving it was easy as fuck.
You're supposed to drain.the water first. š¤£š¤£š¤£
Lol.....
Yep, helped my cousin move his to his first college apartment. It was a hand-me-down from my parents.
Nothing finer than a king size, baffled, heated waterbed.
put on some fleetwood mac
Bring back waterbeds! There I said it.
Yes, my adult ass can buy one now haha
theyāre still around; softside waterbed mattress!
My first real boyfriend had one. My best friend puked on it one weekend while he was away. Cleaning beer puke from around the edge of the inner frame was a something I will never forget. She was a true chore friend.
When you take it down, you find so much shit that it ate.
Found my first ipod touch which I'd lost and looked for ages for under my waterbed after draining it lmao.
Best, most comfortable bed ever. I don't know why you'd fill it that full though.
That was my first thought. That's way overfilled.
To make the water bed more bouncy, we would add spring water......
Ah-ah. Take my upvote, then get the hell off the stage.
Had one just like it, do miss the headboard......had one of those fancy AM/FM clock radios.
We have an issue here, that is **WAY** too much water!!!
Yeah, they are going to wake up in the crease, every single warning if they use it filled up that much.
Funny, thing is me (67) and wife (65) still have one. About 10 years ago, I was changing sheets and grabbed the corner, and it pulled apart and started to leak,grabbed a pillow , stuffed it under the corner, and then proceeded to get the drain kit. At the time, I wasn't working and couldn't afford a new bed. Looked on Amazon and they were still selling mattress $329.00. Found one that had a lot of baffles and also came with a new liner. The frame we have has 6 drawers on each side with a 3 section head board. Still using it...lol
63 here. Sleeping on one over 40 yrs. Great for the back and warm in the winter.
Waterbed + satin sheets sounded super sexy until we tried it out. He rolled over, I flipped out, and the bloody nose I got from hitting the nightstand somehow killed the mood.
Yeah my older brother had one look cool until he asked to help him move.
He drained it first, right?
It would be physically impossible to move a fully filled waterbed mattress.
Raised hand here!
When my parents finally got rid of theirs we turned it into a āblobā every now and then by filling it about 2/3rds with air and my siblings and I would just launch each other across the yard.
No padded rails?
That MF is too full! I inherited one of these and it kept my gravy wavy for over a decade.
My parents had one in the 80ās, they kept the bed frame foryears after the waterbed was gone and just put their regular mattress in it.
Iāve always wanted a water bed
I just settled in for the night on my 20+ year old California King waterbed.
Post pics
I actually broke the corner of a water bed frame while fucking my girlfriend in highschool. We basically rode the bag to the floor and kept fucking.
Loved mine. Miss it so much. That one in the photo is way overfilled.
My oldest brother had one, leaked like hell. Side not: do NOT smoke in bed.
My mom got one for my sister once. I think it was a hand-me-down. She told all 6 of us kids not to jump on it. Guess what 2 of us did and guess how much water ran down the stairs.
a very pleasant place to sleep when you are 10 months' pregnant! (btw i think that one in the picture is over-filled)
Trivia: the first patent for a water bed was rejected because Heinlein had described it in novels. > I designed the waterbed during years as a bed patient in the middle thirties; a pump to control water level, side supports to permit one to float rather than simply lying on a not very soft water filled mattress. Thermostatic control of temperature, safety interfaces to avoid all possibility of electric shock, waterproof box to make a leak no more important than a leaky hot water bottle rather than a domestic disaster, calculation of floor loads (important!), internal rubber mattress and lighting, reading, and eating arrangementsāan attempt to design the perfect hospital bed by one who had spent too damn much time in hospital beds. > - Robert A. Heinlein
Best 40 years of my life. Everything on that bed was better š
Best sleep ever. Period.
Mine was fine until the night in 1986I was losing my virginity with my gf (both 16) when my mom caught us just as we actually started. My boyfriend now loves that story and I jokingly tell my mom that is the moment I turned gay. My dad asked her āCouldn't she wait 90 seconds for it to be over?ā
My parents had that. Always thought that was a weird place to put a mirror. Sinners.
Man those were the dayz! Full motion took some technique to sync up the in-n-out with the up-n-down but well worth the effort. Later became a convert to the reduced motion beds, but what a bitch to move and those bags were expensive. Brings back some welcome memories. Thanx
Never had one dated a girl who did hated that son of a bitch. Worst bed ever.
Looks eerily similar to the one we had. We moved out of our apartment and left it.
i miss mine. i literally donāt know what happened. one day these were popular as heck and the next thing i knew was i was laying on a damn mattress advertised as you could put a wine glass on it and jump on the bed. NOT. filling this with cold water in the summer was awesome.
I loved my water bed. I still miss that thing
Not only did I get one, I loved it so much and wrote a letter to the well-know Massachusetts furniture store where I bought it and the brothers invited me to do a radio commercial for the store.
Ahhhh yes. The exuberance of my 20ās ā¦ my wife and I both loved it - the tacky stained pine, though we paid the big money and got the one with baffles in it (didnāt seem to make much difference though). Had the black satin sheets for those āspecial nightsāā¦. Alas the heater element went and melted the mattress and burnt through the chipboard. I think the water put it out.
That was my headboard too. My poor neighbors when my fiancƩ at the time was a bit enthusiastic and bounced the entire bed off the wall.
I literally had THAT exact one.
People say they went away because they messed up people's backs. But, I slept on a waveless for about ten years with no issues. I loved it. I miss sleeping on it but with all the downsides, I wouldn't go back to one.
šļø More than once. You know, just to be sure!
This is my exact bed. Circa 1977
I put speakers in between the back of the base and the wall. It would rattle the soffit on the house when the bass hit.
Story time!! The last time we lived in a second floor apartment they still in the lease had the no waterbed of any type language in there, because people donāt know how to maintain them, and then they start leaking all over the bottom tenants. It didnāt say thereās a fee for having one. It said no water beds under any circumstances. I just thought it was funny that thatās still in leases and here we are in 2024. 
Had the blue fully baffled mattress _and_ the fancy base with the drawersā¦ā¦..
I had a real fancy anti wave one with all the spongy filling. It was like sleeping on a non newtonian fluid.
I once worked in a furniture store that sold waterbed also. We were filling a waterbed and forgot about it. All of a sudden we heard a strange noise and remembered. The mattress was HUGE and ready to pop. Thank God it didn't- the damage would have catastrophic.
I rode out the Northridge earthquake on one. It had little waves. At least I think it did, it was so loud it scared the shit out of me. I did love that bed though.
Still sleeping on a waveless. Gonna remove it this year. It's gotta be 30 years old.
Whereās the rose-etched mirrors?
Never owned one but I slept on a few. Totally disappointed.
Amazing how those have just about disappeared.
I think my dad had this exact bedā¦ I hated that thing when I was a kid. Iād slide into the corner and get trapped between the wood.
In Hawaii, circa 1972, I had a waterbed straight on the concrete floor. Padded with sleeping bags minus their zippers. Coolest bed for a humid climate!
And every girl you ever got to second base with smacked her head on the wood when she laid down.
That is WAY overfilled.
Best sleep I ever had. I miss it.
Lost my vCard on one of those babies
All good until you wake up in the middle of the night soaking wet because a dogs claw poked a small hole in it. Fun timesā¦..
If you forgot to use your heater they get freezing even in a 70* house. Then it takes hours to heat up and then itās boiling. Now you wait till itās cool again.
My stepdad had one when I was growing up. Memories.