Once upon a time, I wanted a waterbed. I thought waterbeds were the best. I’d slept on one at a sleepover and loved it. I was still a teenager, so I couldn’t just go out and buy one. And I couldn’t ask for one, it was ridiculously expensive.
There was a nightclub not far from our neighborhood that was open for teens on some nights of the week. It was an old disco bar that was trying to stay alive after disco had died. Glowing dance floor and all that.
There was a special party at the club one night, and they were handing out tickets as we came through the entrance. There would be drawing later for prizes.
Yeah, whatever. I never won those things.
Well.
It was one of those “slow-mo” moments where it seems unreal. I was reading the ticket number and it seemed like it matched. I had to show it to my friends.
Yes, yes! Go up! I had to go up onto that glowing dance floor all by myself. The potential for humiliation was great: all of my classmates would witness it if I was wrong. But I wasn’t wrong. I won the prize.
And it was a waterbed!! Yahoo!
So all you have to do to get a free waterbed is be a teenager, get a ticket, and have it match the numbers when the prize happens to be a waterbed.
Waterbeds are still pretty neat, but if you’ve ever been in one when the heater stopped working, normal mattresses look pretty good after that.