Satin Sheets to Lie on, Satin Pillows to Slide On

If I ever doubted who the country mouse was in my marriage, I don't now. My wife, who spent her formative years in a very nice section of upstate New York, knows all about which fork you eat the salad with, when it is and is not ok to wear white (my answer: not when you're having barbeque...), and what a napkin roller is for. Having grown up in Tennessee, in places with names like Singleton and Unionville (also known by the locals as Doolittle), my idea of culture is a bag of pork rinds and a drive-in movie. If we really wanted to "do the town", we'd head over to the Waffle House after for some steak & eggs. I'm about as cultured as an episode of Hee Haw...

Never has this been more apparent than recently. While perusing Overstock.com for deals (my wife's family are notorious deal seekers. Her grandma was once arrested for abuse when she held on to a dollar so tight George Washington filed a complaint), my wife was ecstatic as she proudly announced to me that she'd bought a set of satin sheets on clearance.

Great, I thought. Rich people on tv always have satin sheets on their beds. They are supposed to be a symbol of romance and affluence. I don't care one way or another for looking affluent but anything that puts the wife in a mood to be romantic is ok with me.

It was a good idea in theory...

What I didn't know, having only ever slept on the sheets you get for $17 at Wal-mart, is that satin is slippery. Very very slippery. Here's how the conversation went the first night we put them on the bed:

Joan: Ah, satin sheets. They're soooo nice.
Me: So... Does that mean you're feeling romantic?
Joan: Maybe...
Me: Woohoo! *leaps onto the bed, hits sheets and slides off the other side onto the floor*
Joan: You missed...
Me: Ow... I think that was my spleen...

For the next several nights I gave them a try. I would gingerly climb into the bed so as not to slide off the other side and proceed to slip all over the place all night long. I'd wake up to discover my pillow had shot off the bed and I was now the owner of a neck crick.

And don't even get me started on the "romance" aspect. I fail to understand how satin sheets are remotely romantic. What's romantic about sleeping on a Slip & Slide? How can one be romantic when, every time you attempt to move next to your spouse, she slides away? By the time I finally caught Joan, I was too exhausted to do anything but give her a kiss on the cheek and fall over, slide off the bed, and injure myself further.

Nope. All those soap opera people can keep their satin sheets and their fancy beds. I'll take cotton. Plain old simple cotton. Cheap, warm, and non-injurious.

Now where's my straw hat?

-Gryph

NP: Iris Dement: Infamous Angel

"Some say they're going to a place called glory
and I ain't saying it ain't a fact
But they say I'm on the road to purgatory
and I don't like the sound of that..."
-Iris Dement