New Mattress + Urine = Disaster

During one of my several years of college I failed (read: was too stoned to care) to find a place to live prior to the start of the fall semester. Some nights I slept in my car, others I slept at friends' places and some nights I just made the drive home.

One night my friend, let's call her "W", said she was going to be gone from Thursday until Monday and she graciously offered to let me crash in her room all weekend. The night she left I went to the corner tavern, The Ale 'n' Wich, to have a couple beers. Two pints later I returned to W's domicile and promptly fell asleep on her bed.

I dreamt of being waist deep in a lake and urinating in the water (the dream was the result of having urinated in the Delaware River the weekend before). In the midst of the dream I awoke to find that I had released a deluge of urine of biblical proportion directly onto the center of W's mattress (thoroughly soaking my clothes as well). It being the early, early morning I was too tired to do anything other than undress, yank off the sheets and toss them onto the balcony that was attached to W's room (first mistake). I then passed out naked, with a glaze of urine around my waist and crotch, on a second mattress that was stored under the bed.

In the morning I realized that cleaning urine from any sponge-like furniture is best done immediately as opposed to several hours after it has had a chance to seep well into the depths of the mattress. I attempted to address the problem by buying a gallon of Nature's Miracle and dousing the mattress with it repeatedly.

When this failed to eliminate the rank smell of urine I then proceeded to vigorously rub the solution into the mattress. After 2 minutes of scrubbing (mistake #2) I realized that I had bled the color (of what appeared to be a new mattress) from a large area in the center of the bed.

I created an enormous white spot in the middle of the blue mattress. It was like a giant moon in the morning sky. At this point I realized that my plight was hopeless and the best I could do was flip over the mattress and pretend nothing happened. Unfortunately the smell of urine penetrated to the other side. During the next few days I made a few more attempts at rinsing the urine out but I couldn't eliminate the piss aroma completely, a la Lady Macbeth.

Well, W came home on Monday night, I gave her back her keys, bought her some flowers for her room and thanked her for her generosity, all the while picturing her sleeping in my piss.

A few weeks went by and W never said anything. I figured she must not have noticed so I decided to keep silent and perhaps tell her 20 years later when I was sure she was no longer using that mattress.

I went to visit her one night and as I walked up the stairs to her apartment I noticed the mattress leaning against wall with the giant white spot glaring at me. It looked like a giant, negative image Japanese flag. The flag of incontinence.

W had decided to paint her room and moved all the furniture out, mattress included. I stood in the hallway looking from W to the mattress, from the mattress to W, as we discussed the subtleties of color when painting. W never said anything about the spot.

That was five years ago. Only 15 left before I can come clean.