4/27/10 Slip Sliding Away

Have you missed me? I know it's been a while, but I honestly haven't been doing anything all that exciting, hence the radio silence. But since I've started receiving the "are you still breathing" emails, I thought I'd better pop on and say something.

Sooooo...yeah.

I bought new sheets yesterday. (Feeling sorry that you asked if I was alive now, aren't you?) Actually, I had been meaning to buy new sheets for a while now since the washing machine eats ours and they were a little worse for wear. (Our washing machine eats everything. It's very abusive. Perhaps I should be buying a new washing machine instead of new sheets, but that's another day, and significantly more dinero).

Anyway.

The old sheets were looking kinda ratty, and the local humane society just took in about 40 dogs from a dog hoarder, so I decided to buy new sheets. (I know, I know, you're reading the dog thing and being all, bless her heart...she's lost her ever lovin' mind. Which is true, but before you write it off as a complete non-sequitur, let me explain). The Young Williams Animal Shelter busted a dog hoarder with 70 something dogs the other day. (Poor dogs. If you must hoard, hoard china figurines or hubcaps or even empty coke cans, but leave the poor animals out of it. The neglect was unbelievable). The animal shelter is overrun with all these dogs, and a call went out asking for supplies, one of which was old sheets and towels. And I was like, "I have sheets and towels!" So the old ones went to Young Williams for the dogs and I went shopping for new ones.

Actually, I totally lucked out on the new sheets, because I just so happened to come across some on clearance, taking them from $35.99 to $12.99 for a queen set. And I was like, 13 bucks for sheets? Oh yes ma'am! So I grabbed two sets and happy-danced my way to the register. The only thing is that they were satin sheets, and normally we (me and Tony and the cat menagerie) enjoy sleeping on Egyptian cotton. But what they hey, for $12.99, we'll switch to satin.

(Not to mention, it's shiny and pretty! Which has absolutely nothing to do with comfort at all, I know, but still...shiny is better, right?)

Well. Last night was the maiden voyage of the new sheets, and come to find out that there is one other way that satin sheets differ from cotton (besides being shiny, I mean). Turns out that they are also slippery. In fact, the phrase "slicker than goose poop" comes to mind, because we were slipping and sliding all over the place last night. (And not in a fun way, either). Satin sheets reduce bed friction to zero! I went to lay my head down on the pillow, and darned if the thing (in its nice new matching satin pillow case) didn't go squirting right out from under me and off the bed. Several times. The duvet also slid off (on Tony's side, leaving me uncovered and shivering all night). The remote to the tv went over the side. Even the cats were accidentally de-bedded when I moved my foot and sent a sleeping Mason skidding over the edge. (Boy was he surprised!) Honestly, it's like trying to sleep on a slip 'n slide.

So I'm not sure what to do about the sheets. Is there a learning curve to sleeping on satin? They are very nice sheets, and we've used them already, so it's not like I can take them back to the store. And I already took the old ones to the animal shelter. And these are so very shiny and pretty and soft. But short of lashing ourselves and everything else to the bed at night, I'm not sure how to keep everything where it should be. Does anybody else sleep on satin? Is there a trick to it? Do they eventually de-slide as they wear? Or should my next investment be velcro pajamas?

On the plus side, we've invented a fabulous new game called cat shuffleboard. Tonight's game will be starting at approximately 2am.