Fresh Sheet

I am a thrasher.

When it comes to sleeping, I love nothing better than a freshly made bed to crawl into because ahhhh, those cool, smooth sheets feel good against my skin.* I crawl in between them as soon as I am done un-tucking my side and the foot of the bed because I am not a fan of the foot mashing induced by a tucked bed. That's just another form of patriarchal foot binding and I'll have none of it, I tell you! I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Clean, fresh sheets on a newly made bed: heaven. That lasts about 2.3 minutes, apparently. I don't know for sure. I'm a pretty heavy sleeper. But whenever I wake up I find the sheets are a disaster. I have thrashed so much that the top sheet is in a different part of the country** and not only is the fitted sheet easing itself off the mattress but it's all bunched up under me.*** Now I could see the sheets getting pulled to one side or the other, but somehow I manage to thrash so much that I make a lumpy furrow of sheets under me that a gopher would be able to tunnel through.

What's up with that? Is my subconscious so messed up that I am fighting wildly in my sleep? Am I trying to make little animal escape tunnels because I feel guilty about the terrible treatment of gophers in the movie Caddy Shack? In my sleep, am I doing an interpretive dance of the economic crisis the country is experiencing in order to draw the demons out?

Who the heck knows.

This is one advantage of staying in a hotel. A freshly made bed every day. Ready for thrashing. Ahhh.



* Once, when I was sick and had chills, I put flannel sheets on the bed and got into flannel pajamas. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS! This was a disaster. The flannel of the PJs locked with the flannel of the sheets and I was completely paralyzed. It was terrifying. And sweaty. Really sweaty. In a not so pretty way. We're talking "As I believe I've already told the committee, I have no recollection of that event, Senator" sweaty. I'd rather have chills. Since then, no pjs.

** No doubt a part that has a view of Russia.

*** You know the mashed potato scene with Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Not really like that.