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Published: June 25 2012

Buzz Fleischman - Columnist Page Here’s a pop culture quiz for baby boomers. Next to a shag rug, and a bean bag chair, what was one of the more ubiquitous pieces of furniture from the 70’s?

It was a water bed, and if you were really cool, it matched the shag rug.  A shag rug is as far from today’s culture as a horse and buggy is from a Corvette, but just like bell bottom pants, that furry rug will be coming back any day now. (How many times did you vacuum your shag rug and suck up coins, earrings and assorted beads?)

We had a perfectly good water bed for about 25 years but one day the bed had reached its shelf life by producing a small leak. The one place you don’t want to find unwanted water is on your water bed. We knew what we had to do. It had to be drained and thrown away. Our garden hose was 50 feet in length and as I was turning blue from trying to suck water to the end of the hose and out the door, my wife held up a small package containing that one ‘extra part’ I was ready to throw away 25 years ago.

I had to, (and this is very hard for a man to say) read the instructions and see what that extra plastic thing packed with the water bed was. Note to my fellow men; never think that any tool or item that is packed with anything is useless because you can’t identify it. Just because you’ve never seen what to me, looked like a tiny spud gun with a water hose attachment doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Reading instructions is like listening to directions, you kind of ‘zone out’.

That’s when I realized the value of a venturi pump. Because I know this bit of information I never again have to prime a dirty filthy water hose with my own mouth as the suction. Even if I had the lungs of Louie Armstrong and the cheeks of Dizzy Gillespie I couldn’t draw a drop from that hose.

We got the flow going with the venturi pump and I didn’t realize how much water was contained in a King size waterbed. By noon we had a pool in the yard. Primitive life forms began to spring from the muck. We launched a whole ecosystem. Pond scum became newts, tadpoles became frogs. Egrets nested and flew. We were lucky that no invasive species discovered the site.Then it was done. We bought a new ‘bladder’ set it in the frame and filled it. We filled it a little too much. There was a hump. We thought that was normal but it was way too full swelling high down the middle which was like ‘no man’s land’. Did I learn my lesson? Does any man? “Honey, would you get the venturi pump?”