The Aerobed

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: You don't have a guest room. If you did, what would you care whether the Aerobed was any good or not? You'd just tuck your guests into a nice comfy bed, a kiss on the forehead and out with the light. But no such luck, no such luxury. Your guests will sleep on the floor of the living room, or the home office you campaigned so mightily for last time apartment-hunting.

Thus, you need a spare bed with the instincts of a good butler, there when it's needed, otherwise invisible. The futon is gone, along with its convertible frame; one isn't 23 forever. The pull-out sleeper sofa — or, more quaintly, the hide-a-bed? Too bad it proved harder to hide the deep gouges its undercarriage carved into the hardwood floor. So long, security deposit.

So an inflatable bed it is. There are two kinds: the Aerobed, and the kind they make fun of on the Aerobed TV commercial. As it happens, I have experience with both. About two years ago, my bride and I moved across the country to begin a new life in the Big Apple. Determined never again to help move or be helped, we'd hired professionals to pack up our life and ship it overland while we flew. Because of the difference in transit time, we spent our last two weeks in San Francisco in a railroad flat as bare as the day it was built.

A well-intentioned friend brought over a non-Aerobed inflatable bed. The accompanying red plastic pump was impossibly lightweight, skippering madly at the end of its hose as it was used. Once turgid with hard-won air, the mattress demonstrated the structural integrity of a Jell-O mold. Any shift by one partner was reciprocated unwillingly by the other, and a trip to the bathroom inevitably led to trouble. If anything, the Aerobed commercial downplays the downside of these undercover Hindenbergs.

But what are you going to do? Such is the human condition.

Enter legendary pitchman Ron Popeil, via a fortuitously timed profile in The New Yorker. Kitsch value aside, it's easy to overlook the stuff they sell on TV. Which is actually kind of odd, given the amazing claims made for such products. But it's quite easy to buy into the claims — that the Ginsu Knife could saw through lead pipe and still slice a tomato, or that the Veg-O-Matic could make crushed ice faster than a refrigerator door icemaker — without buying the products. Some people just shop in stores. At the time of my Aerobed purchase, I didn't even know what "No C.O.D.'s" meant.

But this Popeil guy is a true American original. He's a boardwalk huckster and a mad inventor and a self-made tycoon all in one, and it turns out that the stuff he makes is pretty darn good to boot. The article described one breakthrough product after another, complete with testimonials from experts in the relevant fields — cooking, pocket fishing, hair loss concealment. For that matter, my own father-in-law is one of those food people, a real virtuoso in the kitchen, and he swears by his Showtime Rotisserie Grill. Wanted to get us one, but we live in New York — we've got less counter space than a Fisher-Price Cook 'n Clean© Kitchen playset.

Now, Ron Popeil has nothing to do with the Aerobed. But still. The article got me thinking.

One thing about moving to New York: You'd better be ready for a lot of company. Everyone wants to visit New York, but who wants to pay two hundred bucks or more a night for nothing special? And besides, it's more fun this way! Non-stop togetherness, 24 hours a day for — how long did you say you were staying?

So, two days after taking a fortunate stab at the Aerobed URL, it arrived.

The commercial shows a woman slinging the handy carrying bag over her shoulder and heading out into the world. That's clearly never going to happen. But every other claim they make is 100 percent true. The Aerobed inflates in about a minute with the touch of a button, thanks to a built-in electric pump that never breaks no matter how many times it's dropped on the floor. The internal structure features little can-shaped chambers mimicking the springs of a mattress that dampen bilateral trampolining. The firmness can be adjusted on demand with a button and a little rubber nipple that add and subtract air, respectively. When morning comes, the thing deflates in seconds through a large-mouthed valve at the foot.

The only design quirk of the Aerobed is this very same valve; specifically, the catch of its hinged door. It looks like you would press it one way to open it and the other to lock it, but it's actually the other way around. It's easy enough to figure out, but our third set of houseguests weren't so lucky, or so sober anyway. They made it through the night with a tube of Super-Glue, but by morning the Aerobed had seen the last of its utility.

I was surprised to discover how attached to it I'd become. But all was not lost. Not only did the good people at Aero Products International provide replacement parts free of charge, they even paid for shipping. Two weeks later, we were back in the Aerobed-and-breakfast business.

I'm sold, and you should be, too. Your guests will thank you. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to look into this Flat Hose I've been hearing so much about.

— J. Daniel Janzen (dan at clownyard dot com)