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| by Anna Collins Let me start out by saying, isn’t it great how just about every other day we get a coupon in the mail from Bed, Bath & Beyond or Linens ‘N’ Things? And because they’re in such a vicious, unrelenting, backstabbing competition for your home goods dollar – they’ll take each other’s coupons? It’s just so fabulous living in the U.S. of A. And when you get those coupons, you almost feel obligated to use them, don’t you? Even if you don’t need anything – because, hello, it’s 20 percent off! Her: “Honey, I’m going to
BB&B to get some towels.”
Honestly, guys don’t understand anything. Anyway, let’s talk about the purchase of bedsheets.
The only way I’ll buy sheets is with that coupon – otherwise they’re too darn pricey. Who wants to pay full price for sheets? It’s not like you can show them off to people, like an expensive purse or a fancy power tool. And what’s the point of spending big bucks on something if you can’t show it off and make people jealous? You think women would be carrying around those ugly-ass Louis Vuitton bags if everybody didn’t know they cost as much as a mortgage payment? But don’t get me started on that whole designer brainwash thing. That’s another column. Back to the sheets.
My friend, Ramona, recently asked me if she should buy some sheets she fell in love with because their color was called oregano. Being a fan of Italian food, I thought the name sparked a certain warm feeling. I would, however, have shied away from sheets called eggplant parm or baked ziti since I’d have been afraid their name would’ve given me an appetite right before I drifted off and then I’d be forced to stuff my face like Tony Soprano in a bathrobe before I could get some shut-eye. I’m very impressionable and a light sleeper. My sheets need to be called something like creamy comatose or unconscious umber.
Ramona’s dilemma wasn’t the price, but that her beloved oregano sheets were 300-thread count. Would she be happy with such a low thread count? She wondered, looking at me like the RCA dog.
I personally would never even entertain the thought of buying sheets below a 500-thread count and I told Ramona why. Let me explain. Thread count is the number of threads, both vertical and horizontal, in a one-inch square of fabric. Using finer threads lets more thread fit in the square-inch and the finer the thread, generally, the softer the fabric. So the higher the number, the better. Just like your bank account. Or your I.Q. Or the amount of times you’ve avoided battin’ your relatives in the head during a family dinner because they’re so damn annoying.
Growing up in a “cost-conscious” family, we never had sheets above like 80-thread count, which I lovingly look back on as The Gulag Collection. It was like sleeping on barbed wire, only not as comforting. The sheets were OK if you weren’t concerned about your pesky layer of dermal skin. You could exfoliate just by turning over. Like Scarlett O’Hara pulling up that spindly root from the ground at Tara, one night I yanked the top sheet off my bed and screamed out loud, “As God is my judge – I will never sleep on 80-thread count sheets again!!” To which my mother replied, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Now get to sleep – it’s a school night!”
Now there’s also the 800- to 1,000-thread count sheets, which depending on the thickness of the thread, can feel a bit heavy. I bought some that were 800-thread count Egyptian cotton, which during the middle of the night, felt like I had a camel on me. Then again, I might have been dreaming. I think the sheets were called Desert Psycho. Also, people generally associate the American South with cotton, but Egypt is a big cotton producer, too. And you haven’t heard “In Them Old Cotton Fields Back Home” sung, until you’ve heard it sung in Arabic by eight guys actually wearing sheets.
So the best thing to do is always get 100 percent cotton sheets. To see which you like best, try to feel them against your skin before you buy them – discreetly – don’t be taking off your shirt or anything in BB&B and draping yourself in sheets – they’re liable to get testy and take away your coupon. There’s usually some sheet samples there you can rub on yourself. That didn’t sound right. OK, rip open the pack and casually take the sheets out of the pack, spread them matter-of-factly in the aisle and lay on them. Roll around in them if you need to. Just be causal about it – make it look natural.
Ahhh, there’s nothing better than getting into your bed at night and having a nice set of sheets to greet you after a long, hard day. Well, there might be one thing better.
And that’s the view from this broad.
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Copyright 2007 - Anna Collins - All Rights Reserved