Photo by Justine Camacho on Unsplash

It’s high time someone tell the truth about topsheets. Those massive flat numbers that come as “part of the set” are not, as the bedding industry would have you believe, a basic need of civilized society. Fitted sheets are a godsend, and the pillow cases that caress your head as you drift off to sleep, an inspiration. But those flat sheets. They are, as many have long suspected, the devil’s handiwork. 

I’ve tried – tried I tell you – for decades to be that angelic sleeper who lays flat on her back with the covers gently spread across her peaceful frame. But every morning when I make the bed, I have to dig down to where my feet have brutalized and buried the topsheet, drag it back up from the depths, convince its knot of wrinkles to return to something resembling smoothness, and neatly fold it over the top of the comforter. Gazing upon my elegantly made bed, I get to feel like I’m classy even when I’m not awake.

But I’m living a lie. And my bed tells the story. 

I am not a gentle sleeper. Never have been. As a child I was a side sleeper, and slept with my eyes half open, like a possessed demon seed scaring the shit out of my mother. Had I projectile-vomited pea soup or zombie-walked into the kitchen to procure a 9-inch Sabatier, no one would have been surprised. 

As I grew up and my eyes figured out how to shut all the way, I became a belly sleeper. But whatever it was that my half-opened eyes had been tracking morphed into vigilant and malcontent feet. I always had to have one foot hanging off the bed peeking out from the covers like a sentry watching, waiting for attack. 

Now as a mature (sic) adult, I am a flippity-flopping, yanking this way and that, upsy-downsy-all-around-townsy sleeper (read: versatile). I am equally adept at being on my back, side, belly, three-quarters with my knee drawn up to my armpits, ankles bent or flat, hands tucked under my chin or splayed out in several directions. And often able to achieve each position at least once within the first 5 minutes of getting into bed. Now that’s talent! 

Whereas the mattress and I are Ginger & Fred, completely in tune and in time with each other, and my lusciously puffy duvet obeys me like a golden retriever, the topsheet and I duke it out all night, every night..

Well, topsheet, I’m done with you. I am in my 6th decade now, and no textile is going to rule my world. I am the decider of my own bedding. You’re not even a layer of warmth! You’re simply a shield between me and the blankets that are doing the real work. You’re an accessory, an appendage. 

But you’re awfully cute when you’re folded over the edge of my hard-working blankets. And even though I don’t really care if I’m a heathen for offending your sleek flatness into a crumpled and twisted lump down where the toe-jam lives, I will keep you around. But I’m done trying to pretend that you provide any true purpose in my bedding portfolio. You will sit shriveled up under my faithful comforter, with the tissue wads that have gone missing, the occasional sock that static has gifted you, and all illusions I ever held that I am a graceful sleeper.