Bunkbed Sheets Are Evil

This weekend we’re all doing the weekly house-cleaning rounds. It’s an entire family effort because, well… we have an entire family. A household of six does not lend itself to maintaining cleanliness on a daily basis, even though we’re all gone for the better part of every day. So when the weekend rolls around, this is what we do–floor vacumming, bathroom scrubbing, laundry sorting, dust busting, dish washing, room cleaning, sheet changing duty.

There are some chores that I don’t mind doing. Some are even relaxing and don’t really merit the title of “chore”. Others I dread as much I ever dreaded taking four kids between the ages of 2 and 6 to Wal-Mart right after payday. I can feel the hives coming just thinking about it. The chore I dread the absolute most, the chore of putting fresh sheets on not one, but two, bunkbeds is enough to drive me to drink… heavily.

Who came up with the idea of putting sheets on a bunkbed–a bed that is pushed up against a wall and is within three feet of the ceiling? Why not the throwaway mattress? Why not the paper they roll out on the exam table at the doctor’s office? Why not anything other than a fitted and a flat sheet on a bed that reminds me why I’m afraid of heights? Have you actually performed this fantastic feat of flexibility, patience, and defiance of the laws of gravity?

The bottom bunk is not as bad as the top, although most bunkbeds are placed up against the wall (yes, our bunkbeds are like “most” bunkbeds) so stretching the sheet to the wall and getting it tucked in appropriately entails flinging my entire body across the bed at the same exact time that I’m pulling the sheet in that direction, avoiding the bad fortune of having the entire sheet bunched up under my body.

Once it has actually reached its fully-stretched-to-the-wall potential, I have to pull the corner of the mattress up far enough to get the sheet underneath it, despite the fact that the entirety of my body weight (not what it once was) is pushing against it. Should I actually accomplish this feat, I have to stretch the sheet down far enough to fit around the underside of the corner, all the while praying that it has not bunched anywhere, will indeed stretch far enough, and I won’t have to do the flying-leap-sheet-stretching exercise again.

As if this humiliation is not enough, two separate corners require this maneuver. Then comes the flat sheet. That’s even more of a nightmare than the fitted sheet. Not only do I have to do the flying-leap-sheet-stretching move, but I have to tuck it in, all the way along the wall, and under the end of the mattress (recall the body weight issue). By the time I’m finished with the bottom bunk, I’m sweating like I’ve been on the treadmill for thirty minutes, my hair is doing the static-cling-after-being-rubbed-with-a-balloon-thing to the bottom of the top bunk, my shirt is bunched up underneath my armpits and I’m trying to figure out a way to save space in this blasted room without the bunkbed.

On to the top bunk. Climbing up the ladder in my bare feet, I remember that this particular ladder really requires that my feet be protected by shoes, and by the time I reach the top I’m ready to scream in agony. I’m sure that I climbed many a ladder and tree as a youngster without this issue. I’m not sure why my feet are so tender now, but the narrow, metal rungs of the ladder hurt… bad!

Once I finally reach the top, I have to do the flying-leap-sheet-stretching maneuver, without the benefit of using the floor as a launchpad. This means four corners require this special attention, not just two. Usually the wadded-up sheet is not conducive to the flying-leap-sheet-stretching thing, and it takes fifteen passes to get it all the way to the end of the bed, under the sea of five thousand stuffed animals. If I’m lucky enough to actually get it down there, I have to stretch my whole body out on the mattress again, reach my arms underneath the aforementioned stuffed animals, take a deep breath and plunge my face into the sea of furriness, pull the mattress corner up against my body weight again, and pray that I’ve blindly been able to get the sheet under said corner far enough that it won’t come out and snap me in the face when I tuck in corner #2.

Back to the flat sheet–fly, stretch and repeat. Up and down the ladder fifteen times to get the comforter, retrieve the fallen stuffed animals, get everything tucked in completely, pluck stuffed animal fuzz from my mouth, and I’m finally finished. I want to throw my hands up in the air like the cowboys at the rodeo who’ve just roped and tied a calf. I’ve now gotten my workout in for the entire week, my hair has gone from static to flat, stringy and damp, I feel the need for a shower, and my last nerve has long since gone, although there is a small sense of relief in knowing that another week will go by before I have to do this again.

As I head down the stairs, wiping the sweat from my face and mumbling a few last ugly words under my breath, I determine that we’re taking a trip, as soon as possible, to the nearest furniture store for beds that sit on the floor. We’ll find a floor plan that works so that no beds have to be up against the wall, and I can retire the flying-leap-sheet-stretching maneuver. I calculate the cost in my head of all new beds and grumble a little more. I feel the hives coming on again.

Maybe I’ll just teach the owners of these beds how to make them on their own.