All right, this whole story is stupid, isn't even a story. So I'm sitting here in a ratty nightgown at 12:43 because a "little job" I thought would take five minutes took four and a half hours, give or take two or three.I don't know why this crap makes me want to commit suicide. Maybe it's the futility, the utter loss of control, the totally pointless sweat and effort that yields exactly nothing.
I was digging out flannel sheets for the winter, and noticed what a pile of garbage my linen closet is. It's a war in there. I can never find what I want because of all the irrelevant sheets, some of which seem to go back to 1966. There are holes in things, rips in sheets I really liked. Others are magnificent, obviously never used (but those are the ones I can never find, or else they're just too nice to use). There are also old tablecloths, maybe used once at someone's wedding, old partial bath mats (the kind that fit around the toilet - asinine!), decaying shower curtains, a flannel fitted sheet for a playpen (the kid is now seven), and etc. etc. Crap, crap, crap, with the stuff I do want completely buried.
At first I started trying to, you know, straighten up. Just - put this over here, and that over there, and - . As I progressed, or didn't progress, the job got steadily bigger and bigger. There were whole shelves of towels involved (some of which went back to 1963), and a shelf of pillows of various vintage. And cartoon sheets for the kiddies' sleepovers, Dora the Explorer and Thomas the Tank Engine. Or partial sets. You can't put a Dora top with a Thomas bottom (in fact, it sounds alarming). Quivering with fury, I grabbed and pulled out every item on every shelf, dumped it onto the floor and vowed to go through everything item by item. It would only take a few minutes.
Then why do I smell so bad? I smell so bad because the whole thing took so BLOODY LONG, and didn't yield the results I wanted at all.
My sheet inventory was as follows.
One Dora sheet, not fitted.
One Thomas pillow case, with some kind of stain on it, can't think what, could be blood.
One set of twin sheets for the spare bed (which my husband regularly sleeps in when I snore). Hideous color, made in Bangladesh.
One spare set of sheets for our queen bed, very old, with those corners that pop off.
SEVEN SETS OF DOUBLE SHEETS. Double sheets. I couldn't even think about how long ago we had a double bed. Then I realized we bought a pullout years ago, what, seven or eight? It has been slept in maybe twice, three times. So yes, oh, surely, truly, goddam YEAH, YEAH, like we really needed seven sets of double bed sheets!!
OK, it was four, but still. It just defies logic. I never bought those sheets. I never. They must've been spawned by all those other sheets writhing around in there in the dark. It got worse. I kept finding those stupid toilet lid covers and finally put one on my head like a beret. I wanted to flush the sheets down the toilet. I couldn't find my favorite pillow cases - well, I found one, but it was a set, see, given to me by my best friend, nice big queen-size pillow cases, the kind you can never find anywhere, sunny yellow, with pictures of violins hand-embroidered on them.
What the crap happened to the other pillowcase? I want it back I want it back Iwantitback.
Mostly, I want my morning back, and I'll never get it. My life is ebbing away. I can't afford this shit any more. Nobody sleeps in a double bed, it's just not done. Everybody's too fat now. I won't tolerate indelible menstrual stains on my best sheets because I'm eight years past menopause. It's disgusting. From now on, I will sleep suspended in the air 4" above the sheets. Or on the ground outside.
************************************************
POSTSCRIPT. I did find the yellow pillowcase. It was in the wash. But there are still things missing. I broke down and bought a queen set at Zellers for 20 bucks, and now that I've washed them I realize they're the nicest set I own. I want to go back and buy more, more, more, but the thing is, now that I've cobbled together a reasonable variety that sort of match, I don't really need any more. But some day I will need sheets, and say to myself, why do I have to pay $85 for sheets that I could have had for $20?
