Airing It Out

If you read this blog about 40 days ago, you may recall that for Lent this year I had decided to give up not doing sit-ups. Aiding me in my quest was a product called the Magic Ab Bean, which is essentially a curved air mattress designed to help people do sit-ups without as much strain on the neck and back. Now, for the first 39 days of Lent "Beaning for Jesus" had been working out well for me. However, on Saturday I went to take the Bean out of the corner of my room where I store it when not in use and found that it wasn't quite as inflated as it had been the day before. At first I tried to chalk this fact up to falling asleep with the windows open. I thought the cool night air had changed the air pressure enough for the Bean to lose some of its steam. It wasn't until after I had reached the end of my exercises that I knew something was seriously wrong, because normally the Bean keeps me about of foot off the ground and on this day I was closer to six inches. Losing that much air in just a few minutes left me with only one conclusion - my Bean had officially sprung a leak.

Now, at first you could simply count this one as convenient timing. After all, it sprung a leak on Saturday and Sunday was Easter. So, the Bean had lasted just long enough to make it through Lent. I probably should take this is as an Easter miracle and move one. However, much like last year when I began "Biking for Jesus" and then kept right on going after Lent was over, I had planned to continue Beaning after Sunday. So, this morning I decided to pump the Bean back up and see if I could still make it through my routine. Ultimately, I was able to finish, but was again almost on the ground by the time I was done. It was clear that I was either going to have to find and repair the hole, get used to filling the Bean up every day or just buy a new one. Clearly, repairing the hole is the best solution. The problem with this is I only know one way to find leaks in large air-filled things and that is to hold them underwater. The Bean is not exactly small, so I'm not sure where I would be able to do this. Apparently I could also spray it with water and leak would begin to create bubbles, but I'm not totally sure how well that would work. The other thing is that I'm at the point where I have begun to question how much I want to fight with things like this. Much like my father with Christmas lights, there comes a time with certain items at which you begin to ask yourself  if it is just easier to buy a new one than spend time repairing the broken one you already own.

I decided to try and fix the Bean, but do so by going as low-maintenance as possible. First I would over-inflate the Bean, then sit on it and see if I could feel air leaking out, old-school style. After all, I had a general idea of where I thought the leak was. In addition to the sit-ups I do a few resistant-band training exercises and thought perhaps the bands rubbing against it had caused a friction break in one of the seams. I wasn't positive of which seam, but I figured at least I knew which half to check. However, after 10 minutes the Bean was almost out of air, I was nearly sitting on the ground and still no leak had been found. I began to wonder if I was going to be able to find a replacement Bean on the internet since the website was no longer operational. At the very least I was going to need to pump it up a few more times until a replacement could be found so I got out the pump and began to blow it back up. Imagine my surprise as I was standing there using the foot pump to re-inflate the Bean and I could feel air blowing on my leg. Turns out the leak was dead-center on the bottom of the Bean, nowhere near where I expected it to be and not even on a seam. Also, there was no hole to be seen - air just appeared to be leaking out of nothing. Honestly, I never would have found this thing.

Like most inflatable things, the Bean does come with a repair kit, but I currently have no idea where it is. However it doesn't really matter because, let's be honest with one another, there is no need to go hunting for an actual repair kit in this kind of situation. All a "repair kit" for this kind of thing will be is a smaller patch of tape that is the same color as the rest of the Bean. If that is the case I happen to have a homemade repair kit which is just as effective - it's called duct tape. Sure, it may not look as pretty but it will cover the problem area just as well as anything I would find in the official repair kit. Heck, for all I know it may even work better. (If I felt like going for overkill I would spread some super glue and then lay down the duct tape, but for the moment that appears unnecessary.) So far it appears to be working as I pumped the Bean back up and it hasn't lost as much air as it did before. Of course it may just seem that way, as I never paid attention to how much air it held before this, so I couldn't really tell how bad the leak had gotten until it was well passed too late. But all that really matters is how it does tomorrow when the bigger test will come, as I attempt to do my normal round of exercises. I guess if I find myself lying on the ground I will know I need to do more patching. Before that I just have to find someone who has a really big tub they feel like letting me use for a few minutes.