The Clean Sheet Shuffle
I love clean sheet day. Who doesn’t? There’s something about cold, crisp linen on the bed which induces greater comfort and a more peaceful sleep. I adore my bed. It’s my sanctuary. One distinct advantage of being single is that I get the entire duvet to myself. My bed is huge. Gargantuan. It could house a party of four quite comfortably. I said could. However, having a super-king-sized bed is not the luxury you might think it, at least, not on clean sheet day when you have to change the linen ON YOUR OWN.
When I decided to shake my life up earlier last year, I moved to a new a city. An expensive one. It’s beautiful and inspiring, but the rents are high and the rooms small. My bedroom is exactly that. A bed room. There is just about space either side of the bed for me to squeeze myself around the end of the footboard, crabbing along the wall in order to climb in. In fact, whether I need one hand or both to squish my stomach in on itself in order to get through is a fairly good measure of how well I’ve eaten in any given week. This lack of space is not conducive to bed-making.
Once I have taken a series of deep breaths, and done the necessary warm up stretches in order to prevent likely muscle strain, it takes me precisely 3 minutes and 42 seconds to strip the bed. I know this because I timed it. I am impressed. I am clearly an athlete. Perhaps on this occasion, just maybe, I can achieve the unthinkable and remake the bed without succumbing to infantile tantrums and / or managing to put the duvet the wrong way inside the cover, which is a particular talent of mine.
So. Here I go. One sheet fitted (which requires walking across the bed because this week I clearly haven’t eaten well enough to be able to squish along the far side), and six pillow cases on, and I’m ready for the main event: trying to get a six-foot duvet inside the cover with my T-Rex sized arms (I’m 5 foot 3). I feel like I am wrestling with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters as I haul the weight of the thing across the inside of the cover while stood atop the mattress. I sweat. I grunt. I consider cancelling my gym membership because this seems enough of a fortnightly workout to warrant it redundant. But wait. I have the top corners sorted already. Buoyed by my success, I race to the foot of the bed and frantically begin to do up the thirteen buttons. I feel like Martha Stewart. The Queen of Domesticity. This could be a record.
With the manic grin of a woman possessed, I leap back on to the bed and, with the top end firmly in my grasp, throw the duvet around wildly to spread it evenly through the cover. My face twitches. The telling sight of excess tog-age bunching down one side incites a primal growl which erupts without warning. The duvet is in sideways. Again.