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It only took four days, but I think we finally managed to patch the leak in the air mattress. This really shouldn't have been so difficult. It's a plastic bag that just has to hold air. Patching my waterbed was never this much trouble. :P
How to Patch an Air Bed in Five 12 Easy Steps
Step 1: Find patch that came with the air bed. Then realize patch is nothing but a clear plastic sticker that wouldn't patch crap. Ever. But put it on the velour-vinyl bed and watch it peel back off, just for fun.
Step 2: Go find old waterbed patch kit. Then realize while the vinyl patches will be perfect, the vinyl glue turned into vinyl while you weren't looking...sometime during the last three years.
Step 3: Get the rubber and glue from a tire patch kit and combine them with the vinyl patches from the waterbed kit. Apply to bed and weight the new patch down. Come back in a couple of hours and find out that tire glue doesn't dry under vinyl patches. Then wipe stupid glue off.
Step 4: Spend another night on your deflatable bed. Four hours into sleeping, wake up to find yourself smooshed in the middle of the bed between your spouse and cat and folded into a jacknife position. Fill up bed, repeat.
Step 5: It's a brand new day. Go find your hot-glue gun. Put lots of hot-glue in and around the leak. Fill up bed. Watch hot glue peel away from the stupid fuzzy velour-vinyl. Sigh and scrape no-longer-hot glue off.
Step 6: Realize it's bed time, and the only place open now is Wal-Mart. Resign yourself to going there. Buy some duct tape.
Step 7: Use the release holes in the mattress to stick duct tape on the *inside* and the outside of the leak. Then put even more duct tape on the outside. And then put on even a little more than that. Fill up the bed and listen for leaks. Be happy when you don't hear or feel any.
Step 8: Go to bed happy. Repeat Step 4.
Step 9: Go to a real hardware store the next day. Buy real vinyl glue.
Step 10: Use the vinyl glue to glue down a vinyl patch. Weight down the patch and wait 10 hours for it to dry pretty good. Fill up bed. Put your face two inches away from leak/patch and *stare* at it. Keep staring as you watch the vinyl glue slooooowly pull away from the crevice in which the leak lives. Cross your fingers and hope something makes it stop. Eat some watermelon and watch Adult Swim from on the inflated bed. See the exact moment when the air in the bed defeats your patch.
Step 11: Put away the watermelon. Let the air out of the bed and squeeze a whole bunch of the vinyl glue into the Crevice of Doom. Fold up air bed, and put it in the bathroom so that your cats don't mess up the glue overnight. Sleep on the floor and pretend it's therapeutic.
Step 12: The next night, after letting the glue dry for a bazillion hours, fill up the bed and stare dubiously at the leak that no longer seems to be leaking. Shrug and go to bed. Spend the next eight hours grinding your teeth and having complex quasi-nightmares about the patch coming apart. Wake up the next morning, and realize the bed is fixed. Use the anxiety that says it won't last to motivate yourself into resuming your bedroom remodel in the hopes that someday you will be able to sleep on your real non-inflatable bed.
Congratulations! You've fixed the bed. Here, have a kitten-cat. :)
How to Patch an Air Bed in Five 12 Easy Steps
Step 1: Find patch that came with the air bed. Then realize patch is nothing but a clear plastic sticker that wouldn't patch crap. Ever. But put it on the velour-vinyl bed and watch it peel back off, just for fun.
Step 2: Go find old waterbed patch kit. Then realize while the vinyl patches will be perfect, the vinyl glue turned into vinyl while you weren't looking...sometime during the last three years.
Step 3: Get the rubber and glue from a tire patch kit and combine them with the vinyl patches from the waterbed kit. Apply to bed and weight the new patch down. Come back in a couple of hours and find out that tire glue doesn't dry under vinyl patches. Then wipe stupid glue off.
Step 4: Spend another night on your deflatable bed. Four hours into sleeping, wake up to find yourself smooshed in the middle of the bed between your spouse and cat and folded into a jacknife position. Fill up bed, repeat.
Step 5: It's a brand new day. Go find your hot-glue gun. Put lots of hot-glue in and around the leak. Fill up bed. Watch hot glue peel away from the stupid fuzzy velour-vinyl. Sigh and scrape no-longer-hot glue off.
Step 6: Realize it's bed time, and the only place open now is Wal-Mart. Resign yourself to going there. Buy some duct tape.
Step 7: Use the release holes in the mattress to stick duct tape on the *inside* and the outside of the leak. Then put even more duct tape on the outside. And then put on even a little more than that. Fill up the bed and listen for leaks. Be happy when you don't hear or feel any.
Step 8: Go to bed happy. Repeat Step 4.
Step 9: Go to a real hardware store the next day. Buy real vinyl glue.
Step 10: Use the vinyl glue to glue down a vinyl patch. Weight down the patch and wait 10 hours for it to dry pretty good. Fill up bed. Put your face two inches away from leak/patch and *stare* at it. Keep staring as you watch the vinyl glue slooooowly pull away from the crevice in which the leak lives. Cross your fingers and hope something makes it stop. Eat some watermelon and watch Adult Swim from on the inflated bed. See the exact moment when the air in the bed defeats your patch.
Step 11: Put away the watermelon. Let the air out of the bed and squeeze a whole bunch of the vinyl glue into the Crevice of Doom. Fold up air bed, and put it in the bathroom so that your cats don't mess up the glue overnight. Sleep on the floor and pretend it's therapeutic.
Step 12: The next night, after letting the glue dry for a bazillion hours, fill up the bed and stare dubiously at the leak that no longer seems to be leaking. Shrug and go to bed. Spend the next eight hours grinding your teeth and having complex quasi-nightmares about the patch coming apart. Wake up the next morning, and realize the bed is fixed. Use the anxiety that says it won't last to motivate yourself into resuming your bedroom remodel in the hopes that someday you will be able to sleep on your real non-inflatable bed.
Congratulations! You've fixed the bed. Here, have a kitten-cat. :)