Modern Times

I've been doing a typesetting gig this weekend, one that once involved paste-up, negatives shot with a camera, and so on.

It involved driving, proofing, etc.

Now I hand off an electronic file of what I've formatted and proofed with my editor via the internet. Oh, and the editor is on an Alaskan cruise, so he's been sending me shit when he can get a connection. He'll do the initial proof from Seattle, finall proofs when he gets back to Kansas late tomorrow night.

None of which makes my life any easier, since faster capacity means an even faster demand for speed of turnaround.

Not that these technological advances have made levies less likely to burst.

And after abandoning a conventional mattress for a waterbed; then a soft-side waterbed; then an air mattress, I get to sleep in shifts though the next stage in my personal technological progress.

Those single bladder waterbeds, they were great. Except for bottoming out during sex, not being able to use them upstairs in some houses and the fact that a pin-prick could translate to flooding.

The soft-side is nice, six independent tubes, all sturdier than the old single bladder, encased in sufficient foam to make sure cat's claws and other mischief doesn't puncture them.

They are so self-contained, you don't know what the hell smells funny until you peel back the foam and find out that micro-leaks have still occurred and cultured mold that would make bleu cheese look fresh.

The base is sound, but the mattress...

But those camping mattresses, they rock. Stayed on one placed on a fold-out and it was the best bed ever. Three whole nights, which is the rub.

It started with a cheapie camping mattress on our soft-side's box. It may have lasted almost a month. We ascended through the price ranges, getting brand names like Coleman, etc. Some lasted a month or two, some went flat the same day.

They use different pumps, too, though you'd think that would be standardized. Garden hoses are.

The latest, I splurged and bought a Simmons. Lifetime guarantee. Except I fucked the dog and didn't send the receipt and warranty registration off.

It lasted a while, but now, after two or three hours I might as well be sleeping on the floor. Got to get up and pump it back up. Or, I'll be asleep on apparently hard wood when I hear, through the ether, a screaming sound and find myself buoyed up on the mattress.

Lifetime guarantee? I know I didn't fill out the paperwork, but where they talking about a human lifetime?

Yeah, there's those 'sleep number' beds that are basically the soft-side-water-bed version of a camping mattress. They cost a fortune. But then, when I think of the air mattresses we've been through, I think maybe we would have been smart to get the overpriced one.

My sleep number? It's called, I don't want to have to buy a fucking mattress for a few years, 'kay? Can I get that out of you? A matress that won't leak air, water, feathers, whatever the fuck you make it out of until there's a different President of the United States?

Is that too much to ask?