Whatever happened to water beds?

When I was a kid in the 1970s they were the groovy new thing.

Only the very coolest of people seemed to own one (certainly not our family).

Look:

Owning a water bed was seen as being adventurous, exciting, and perhaps even a little daring!

The Times magazine has quoted an advertisement which stated, “Two things are better on a water bed. One of them is sleeping.”

You might be wondering:

Why have sales of the water bed which were around 20% of total bed sales in the 1980s, fallen to a miserly 5% today?

In my youth I shared a house with a great friend of mine whose bedroom boasted a water bed.

This was great until my girlfriend joined us and moved in with her cat.

You can probably imagine where this is going.

Yes the cat did manage to puncture the bladder causing a slow leak (luckily) which was able to be patched up with a puncture kit.

It gets worse:

Of even greater annoyance was when the cat bumped out the power plug which was powering the heating thermostat for the bed in the middle of winter.

Suffice to say that my friend was not happy when he found himself sleeping on a very cold body of water.

Here’s the deal:

There have been reports of water beds being linked to dysepsia (acid reflux) and also contributing to lower back pain.

Combine this with the technological advancements made in other types of beds (new foams, improved springs, and adjustable bases) and we have seen the market for water beds steadily decline.

What’s the bottom line?

Despite all this, water beds do still have a share of the market and going by some of the online forums, they enjoy some very avid support from some folks.

I suspect that as long as enough people are buying them, water beds will continue to be manufactured.

The Final Word:

Charles Hall, the father of the modern water bed has said that he still has one in every bedroom and that he wouldn’t sleep on anything else.

I guess that’s what I’d say too if I’d invented something which made it’s way into the psyche of a generation.