Friday March 29th, 2024 12:43AM

To use a top sheet or not. That is the question.

I like to think my little effort here each week helps you stay on top of the biggest, most pressing issues of the day, and today, I hope to continue that.

Based on conversations with friends for the last week – both in person and on social media – a big debate is raging about whether a person should use a top sheet.

If you’re wondering what a top sheet is, join the crowd. A top sheet, my friends tell me, is the sheet that goes between you and the bedspread or comforter or duvet or whatever is the outer covering on your bed. I’ve always called it the “flat sheet,” as opposed to the fitted sheet, which has hemmed corners and elastic all around, so you can stretch it and “fit” it over the mattress. 

Apparently, young people today – the media likes to call them “millennials” – don’t use top sheets. They put the fitted sheet over the mattress and then add the bedspread/comforter/duvet/etc. And to this I say: What’s the matter with you people?

First, I come from a long line of people who thought it was important that I made my bed every morning. My mother was serious about it, and I’m certain her mother was, too.

“Did you make your bed?” my mother would ask almost every morning.

Often, to save time, I'd just pull the bedspread up over the rumpled sheets and be done with it. But she could always tell.

Then she'd make me do it again, this time the right way by smoothing out the flat sheet, then pulling the blanket on top of it and smoothing it out. Then pulling the spread up and covering the pillows.

Of course, none of this made any sense to me since just a few hours later I was going to get back in the bed and mess it up again.

The way my mother taught me to make a bed was to put the fitted sheet on the mattress, then the flat sheet, then a blanket and then the bedspread. This is still how I make my bed today. As a result of making my bed this way for more than a half-century, I love to have a lot of covers on my bed to snuggle up with (although I concede I often skip the blanket in the summertime).

I’m not sure I could sleep with only a blanket or duvet. I need lots of covers.

Second, until this debate started, I didn’t even know you could buy sheets separately. I thought they all came in sets. At least that’s how I’ve always bought them. But I’m told that, in fact, you can just buy a fitted sheet.

“Even hoity-toity stores like Bloomingdales and Nordstrom sell them individually,” one friend told me, which may explain why I didn’t know I could buy sheets separately. I’ve never been in a Bloomingdales in my life.

My friend also said she recently paid nearly $300 for a fitted sheet from Nordstrom. 

It’s clear my friend has suffered brain damage from not sleeping with enough covers. The cost of every sheet in my house doesn’t add up to $300. If I’m going to pay that kind of dough for a single sheet for a bed, it better come with a woman, too.

I like to think I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy. I mean, if you want to sleep without a top sheet, knock yourself out.

But don’t be upset when I think you’re uncivilized.

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