When Waterbeds Were Cool
Racial issues didn’t get worse; they got videoed
Columbus, Ohio. Circa 1988. I moved out of the dormitories to start my sophomore year at Ohio State.
The rage at the time was waterbeds. One of every four mattresses sold back then was a waterbed.
For those born too late for this environmentally irresponsible, motion-sickness-causing craze, a waterbed was a plastic mattress you filled up with over 200 gallons of water and then slept on it to a range of wave movements, depending on the model.
A place called Waterbeds ’N’ Stuff was the popular place to buy one back then.
Not to be left out on any new trends, I saved up and bought one — a light-wave version — since I could barely handle being in the back seat of a car or flying on an airplane without getting dizzy.
Several of my other friends bought them, too.
We were, by 1980s’ standards, cool.
As you likely already figured out, waterbeds it turns out weren’t all that cool.
For one, there were countless stories of second-story waterbeds being installed improperly, flooding the apartments below.
For older buildings with poorly supported higher floors, there were even several instances of these…
