I'm done with the top sheet. No really!

Here’s what’s wrong with the top sheet (or the flat sheet as it’s called) (or the super effed up whose idea was this sheet) and why we must blow it off the face of the earth. What me too angry?

The top sheet is NEVER going to be big enough to allow one person (let alone two) to twist and turn throughout the night in decent REM sleep without becoming a major roadblock to unimpeded nighttime comfort and freedom. 

When I was a child, the top sheet in good bed making was tucked in at the bottom.  In those simple days, Ike and Mamie were in the White House.  Pogo was our source of irony.  The plumber charged $16 dollars for fixing almost any water issue.  We slept quietly on our backs and didn’t budge until the first ray of sun pierced our curtains.  Didn’t we?   

Today after another hell day at the cube farm the top sheet is an intolerable border constraint - the 38th parallel - roadblocking our healthy sleep.

Let’s talk purpose.  A top flat sheet is meant to be a shield between the body beneath and the warmth instrument on top.  If we touched our warmth instrument - a blanket or a naked comforter - with our body it would be impractical or itchy or just plain gross (or so we are told.)

Let’s talk dimensions:  the sheet is only big enough to tuck in a few inches at the bottom if we are to have enough fabric left to get that buffer up top between our chins and the itchy blanket or to keep us from drooling on the duvet. What no one else drools in sleep?

Let's talk about side dimensions.  A queen-size mattress - and by the way who chose these regal names? - is 60 x 80 inches. Even in Fieldcrest’s super luxe one million thread count supercale, organic, Egyptian cotton sheet set the most generous queen flat sheet is 90 by 102. Deduct the eight inches in mattress depth, leaves you twenty-two inches to play with length wise and a mere eleven inches per side.  Even if you are slim and sleep alone, your body heft will eat up those inches in a gulp and you have nothing left.  If you thrash side-to-side because of “I’m  naked in the supermarket dream”, your sheet will turn with you but it will not return for the "I fell off the roof of my house but have not yet hit the ground dream." What you don't have those dreams?    

At the foot of the bed, your feet have fought the good battle and are now free of sheet prison but god knows where the sheet has gone. After the first bathroom break, don't even bother to look for the sheet.

The top sheet has become as useless as the appendix but what to use instead?  Recently, I found a super soft encasement thing, zippered on three sides, in my linen closet.  I had no idea what it was or where it came from.  Maybe the gods of good sense put it there just for this issue.  The fabric was a beautiful matte cotton, super soft. It was too shallow to be a mattress cover.  I measured it and found it was the exact size as my generous comforter.  I put the comforter into the case and zipped it up.  I started sleeping under this new zippered thing without a top sheet.  It was trouble-free, simple, soft, shifted easily and stayed where I put it.  It provided warmth and held the promise of easy on-off for washing.  Canon, Springmaid, are you listening?  I’m handing you a million dollar idea for free.  It even has a campaign.  It's one a.m. do you know where your top sheet is?  Yes.  It's on top of me.