What Happens Among the Sheets…

Click Bait, Covid Report, Crisis DuJour, From My Brain to Yours, Self-flagellation, StayHomeStaySafe, , ,

My sheets attacked while I was sleeping. I thought we had resolved our difficulties and reached an accord. But, I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

* * *

I like fresh, crisp sheets. That first night you crawl into them? Ahhh, HEAVEN. But even after one day, they’ve started collecting some of the 30,000 to 40,000 flakes of skin that we humans jettison in a day. Shortly thereafter, colonies of dust mites are feasting on you–in absentia. You might think this means I am religious about changing out my bedding because of my love affair with fresh linen. You would be wrong, but I like that you think well of me.

I found all the above lovely information on SELF a website that sounds like it is intended as a solitary individual’s resource but apparently “YOU” was already taken.

The article references Here’s How Often You Should Really Be Washing Your Sheets. The advice given boils down to a recommendation that you change your sheets once a week. Read it if you don’t believe me:

“YOU SHOULD WASH YOUR SHEETS AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK.”

“This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but both experts like this number because it’s frequent enough to avoid building up levels of contamination you really need to worry about, but it’s also pretty realistic for many people.”

My reaction? Realistic? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah Heeee…*wipes tear*…“Good one!”

How often do I change my sheets? You may ask yourself.

You (Not the magazine): “What, every two weeks? That’s not too bad.”

Me: “Longer.”

You: “Uhh…every three weeks?”

Me: “Keep going…”

You: “You know what, never mind. I really don’t want to know.”

Me: “That is the correct answer!”

Which is what led to the situation where I was wrestling to escape from my bed the other night.

DRAMATIC REENACTMENT OF TAWDRY BEDROOM SCENE:

Picture if you will, my very skeevy sheets crawling with dust mites, wrapping themselves about my body, trying to end me. And go…

Me: (wakes with a yelp) “Hey, what the…”

DM (dust mites): “We need to talk.”

Me: (fumbles for iPhone) “What time is it?”

DM: “It’s time to change things. We want to speak to the management.”

Me: “What? I am the management. What could be so bloody important you have to wake me at oh-dark thirty to chat?”

DM: “It’s the sheets. You need to destroy them. They’ve turned.”

Me: “I thought dust mites loved crawling around in human filth.”

DM: “Yeah, maybe a bit. But even we have our limits. Besides, it’s the sheets who are asking for mercy.”

Sheets: “Please, kill me. I’m afraid of what I may become if this goes on much long…longggg…OH NO! It’s happening… H E L P!!”

The sheets devolve into a primordial life form before my sleep-deprived eyes.

Sheets: “SNARL, SNORT…AROOOOOOOUUUU!”

DM: “Too late. They’ve gone were!”

Me: “Where? Where have they gone? Wait, they’re still here! Hang on…what are you doing?”

DM: “Not ‘WHERE’ as in location, you imbecile, ‘WERE’ as in Werewolf. Or, in this case, Weresheets. You know what, never mind. You deserve your fate.”

Me: “Ack. Help! It’s got me in a head lock!”

The sheets are now fighting me in earnest. They’ve wrapped around my legs like a boa constrictor and are slowly winding up me. A cordon closes around my neck with sliding, oozing insistence. They get tighter and tighter…I’m getting lightheaded…the world fades to black…AND…

END SCENE

I jerk awake, kicking to be free of my death shroud.

“You won’t get me you slimy bastards!” I bellow.

If anybody needs me, I’ll be in the laundry room, using ALL the bleach.

On an unrelated note, I got my Covid vaccine today and immediately fell asleep on the couch after dinner. It’s official. I’m old.

36 thoughts on “What Happens Among the Sheets…”

    1. I’m glad you found this amusing. When I read it, I was a tad concerned it might be a cry for help….from my sheets. They deserve better. It is entirely possible the reason I have been sneezing and getting a ‘stuffy head’ is allergy related. Hmm, that had not occurred to me before you wrote that. Thank you. Perhaps I will get better at this ‘being human’ project I’m on.

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    1. I confess, I’m only changing sheets because I simply couldn’t stand them any longer. I have to use so much ointments in winter because of dry skin, I suspect my sheets absorb a sufficient quantity that I could squeeze out a tube of the stuff if I tried. Hence, the need to be rescued from their octopus-like grip. But hopefully your sheets are much friendlier than mine. And your dog much tastier to the bedmites too.

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  4. I’m glad you got your shot!

    This is hilarious.

    I wash my sheets every week. I always have. Sometimes I even think about my mom training me or brainwashing me about household chores and I’m kind of glad now, but yeah…

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    1. Yesterday was spent in a haze of pain and fever after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine kicked in–I was very grateful to wake up today only feeling exhausted. But, that means the vaccine worked, right? Only time will tell.

      Oh, and I always make an effort to become a Better Homes and Gardens homemaker around Spring, but, very soon reality runs into my intentions and I forget again until things get desperate. Like with the sheets. I am the very model of a chaotic system somehow maintaining enough balance not to fall apart completely. Or so I like to tell myself.

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  5. Yay for your vaccination. I have to wash the bed linen every week … and the mattress/pillow protectors, and spray the mattress with a lavender-y mix that mites are meant to hate. The alternative is no sleep for anyone in the house as I wheeze and sneeze my way through the night.

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    1. Someone else mentioned wheezing/allergies. Honestly, It’s like a lightbulb went off.

      “Hey…I’ve been stuffed up for almost a year…could I be allergic to dust mites?”

      And, while it hasn’t been exactly a year since I changed the sheets. Um, let’s just say, I could do it more frequently. Especially if it means I won’t wake up feeling like I’ve stuffed sausages up my nostrils. (Enjoy that visual.)

      But, I draw the line at lavender. I’m actually allergic to that. Maybe I could try a tea tree oil scent? Or grapefruit? I love grapefruit.

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      1. It’s worth investigating. I find I have to attack not only the sheets and matress protector, but every now and then the matress itself. Mine is getting on a bit, but is still comfortable to I’m loathe to replace it, but I’m sure it must be a super-city of dust mites.
        Tea-tree is a great alternative to lavender. Clove, eucalyptus, peppermint and rosemary essential oils are all meant to work too. I use lavender because I find the scent helps me sleep. But I’m guessing that wouldn’t be the case for you 😦

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    1. I go by the rule of thumb, if I can’t remember when I last changed something, it’s probably over due. (My furnace filter for example is sadly months late every single time.)

      This reminds me, I forgot to check to see if I took my meds this morning. I am officially old that this is a thing.

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  8. The Like button is loading, so LIKE!
    I do wash my sheets every week, Sunday specifically. If I am doing a blood, I may well wait til the next Sunday, but generally, every Sunday. No bleach, skin too sensitive. My life does not seem as complicated as yours, tho, hm?
    Middle daughter’s sheets are surely caked of germ, but that’s not my business 😉 Hopefully they will not attack her…

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    1. Perhaps you could print this out somehow and leave it on her pillow?

      My goal is to change my sheets every Sunday. That’s the ‘GOAL.’ What happens in reality depends on my laziness and exactly how tired I am by the time Sunday rolls around. They do get changed enough that I’m not entirely gross. Just sporadically gross.

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  9. I’m responding to you’re comment here rather than on my blog, because the last time we talked about it (maybe a year ago) my son denied vehemently that he’s on the spectrum. He’s a teenager and has a good head on his shoulders. It’s his story to tell when he wants to tell his story. After thirteen years of rough parenting, and long after I identified him as having autism (based on the stories I read on Robyn’s blog), a new doctor referred him for testing. Regardless of how he identifies, he’s willing to take advantage of his 504 plan that allows for extra time for assignments which is absolutely necessary. Since his diagnosis, my wife and I have totally revamped our thinking and approach and we’re all far happier as a family. I don’t pretend to have even and ounce of the challenges that you and many of my blogger friends have but I feel like I’m well positioned to be more empathetic than most. At times I’m a little envious of some bloggers’ ability to blog on the topic. Some of my best writing has been on autism parenting, but for the most part, It’s in the vault.

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    1. I’m betting that vault has a lot of interesting stories to tell. Maybe someday, it will! Until then, your secret is safe with me…if only because I forget everything everyone tells me seconds after I’ve heard it. I make both the best spy and the worst spy at the same time.

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  10. Love it! My sheets started out deep red. But I’m very pale pink. Now there are portions of my sheets that are also very pale pink. Maybe I should wash them very soon. Maybe yesterday. Oh crap, now I’m afraid to go to sleep tonight. Thanks, Kiri.

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  11. This made me think of a comic where the husband says what he misses about being single was clean sheets. So the wife looks at him really angry and he quickly defends himself, saying he hardly ever washed his sheets, so when he finally did it felt so good!
    You can use that as an excuse if you want!

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    1. Since I sleep by myself, I figure I’m the only one who suffers if I slack off. But, then again, clean sheets are almost worth the hassle of wrestling with the mattress to get them back on. Almost.

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  12. I used to change the sheets twice a year: from cotton to flannel, then from flannel to cotton. Charlie insisted on HIS organizing the linen cabinet, and I could never figure out his system, so it just took too long to find matching sheets that fit the bed I was changing, rather than beds of a different size which we hadn’t owned for years. Then I caught on that, once I found the sets that fit our bed, I could hide them, so I had them to hand when I needed to change them. Eventually, I caught a sale and bought more than one set of cotton and more than one of flannel, so now, long story short (TOO LATE!), I change the sheets once a month. I’m generally fairly clean when I go to bed, right? More or less?

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    1. I have a bit of a sheet buying impulse problem. If I see them on sale, I buy a new set. Then I have to find a place to store them in my tiny 1950’s house without closets. (If I ever make some actual money in my life, I’m either going to build a fricken closet in somewhere–possibly by putting an attachment on the house–or moving to a house with all the closets!

      You know, when other women fantasize, usually there’s a Helmsworth involved. I want someone from Home Depot with a hammer and a free weekend.

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      1. LOL! I married an English/Humanities teacher with mad building skillz, so I had the best of everything. Lucky for me, he taught three of the four girls a love of English and the Humanities AND taught them building skillz. The fourth one is as crazy as I am.

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  13. I do one set of sheets each week. McMini’s one week, ours the next. Despite having a splendid bionic knee I still have arthritic thumbs so that’s all I can cope with. Congrats on getting your Covid shot. Hope a sleep on the couch is all it gave you. I had Covid micro, shivvers, temperature, sweats, headache, dizziness, raging thirst and then nausea. The up side was I had the shot first thing and managed not to start getting ill until the evening and had all of that over night. The downside, I woke up feeling like I hadn’t been to sleep and couldn’t taste my coffee in the morning. That said, if that’s what Covid is like I’d rather have it as a reaction. Needless to say McOther had a light headache for 48 hours because he is Mr Spawntastic git.

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    1. Spawntastic? Is that a good thing? I know ‘git’ isn’t, so one assumes not. I’m very glad I only had one day of it. I absolutely don’t want to imagine the real deal. Faux covid was bad enough for me.

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      1. If someone seems unusually lucky, we call them a jammy bleeder or a spawny get. So I was trying to find a way of calling him a spawny get that was a bit more interesting. Mwahahahrgh! And yes, totally with you on faux Covid. It was QUITE enough!

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  14. Why is changing or washing sheets such a horrible chore? Ugh! I think half of the pain is marching around my queen sized bed for 30 minutes trying to get the fitted sheet on properly. But I do adore slipping into the freshly laundered sheets on my bed – 5 or 6 times a year.

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    1. You speak my lazy lie-abed language, Baseball Gal! For me, it’s getting the blasted sheet straps to attach. They snap back and bite me several times as I try to navigate the very thick mattress and bed topper I possess. (I call them bra-straps for the bed, but I wasn’t sure you’d understand that reference.)

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  15. I’m guessing the article recommending a weekly sheets wash was sponsored by a national brand of laundry soap. CONSPIRACY. Also, you are 857% more likely to be injured by changing the sheets and remaking the bed (“extra deep pockets” yeah right) than you are by sleeping on them. You read it right here on the internet so it’s true. Also – hi stranger 🙂

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    1. Hi, back atcha. I have my moments where I binge blog posts and then drop off the planet watching my latest Netflix find. Sorry if I’ve seemed distracted, but honestly, if I had to pick a word to describe life in lockdown–distracted would work. That or totally missing in attention span. I am like a butterfly–with access to a tv remote and endless scrolling of wifi. So, not a cute flitting butterfly–but one that is stuck in the amber of lethargy and frozen in time.

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