I grew up sleeping on waterbeds. Even had one with my first girlfriend after moving out of the family homestead. (A huge California King summabitch, with massive slab headboard, sides, and foot. A California King is just enough bigger than a king sized bed that you need to buy special sheets for it.) They generally sucked. Sloshed like anything when you rolled over. Or your partner came back to bed after going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, sat down on their side of the bed, and almost launched you out the other side. (My partner at the time was 90 lbs soaking wet. She was TINY.) Eventually they came up with chambered designs and inserting a foam pad in the water to keep the sloshing down, and it prevented you from being ejected from the bed every time your partner climbed in... but then it was just a squishy mattress with finicky electronics that would sometimes leave you cold... And there are few things less pleasant than a fitted sheet slipping during the night, and the bare skin of your foot/leg/shoulder/arm touching the uncovered plastic bag of water... it's like touching a dead seal. In the middle of night. In bed. Blech. Borrowing three hoses from neighbors to run water up to your 3rd story window is a sure-fire way to make your downstairs neighbors VERY nervous, too...
Over time, waterbeds evolved to the point where they no longer had water in them. They're now called "memory foam" and they STILL SUCK. PTSD man I eventually ended up leaving the damn thing unplugged and piling blankets on top of it, then sleeping in a sleeping bag, then leaving the windows open so that during the winter my room got down into the 40s. Because if you're going to be camping on a fucking ice floe, camp on a fucking ice floe. The basic idea for waterbeds was "hey this scientifically unproven idea from the era of health enemas and leeches - how 'bout we perpetrate that on the entire goddamn public? It'll really piss off the hippies' parents and they'll buy 'em like hotcakes!"Eventually they came up with chambered designs and inserting a foam pad in the water to keep the sloshing down, and it prevented you from being ejected from the bed every time your partner climbed in... but then it was just a squishy mattress with finicky electronics that would sometimes leave you cold...
it's like touching a dead seal. In the middle of night. In bed.
