The Perfect Sheet

We have guests coming in from out of town this week, so it’s been a cleaning frenzy at our house.

I decided that we needed new sheets for the guest room. I think a person really feels welcome as a guest when they stay at someone’s house and the room has nice, crisp high-end sheets that snap when you climb in between them. If that room has the hand-me-down floral prints from 15 years ago that got retired from the master bedroom, it can be a bit of a let-down.

You’d expect the old 1980’s patterns if a hide-a-bed in the den were folded out for your stay; after all, they’re going to get snagged and ripped on that mechanism that’s designed to rip off your toes when you slam into them in the middle of the night anyhow.  Besides, hide-a-beds are designed to guarantee that no guest feels so welcome that they aren't ready to leave after a couple of days.

But a guest room needs to be a bit fresher than that.

The problem is, this isn’t the right time of year to be getting a deal on high thread-count sheets. I learned when I worked at Montgomery Wards that there are seasons for these things. Linen sales happen in January, for some reason. Think about it – you never hear “November White Sale” – it’s always “January White Sale”.

I suspect it has to do with the fact that the thought of an extra blanket crosses more than one person’s mind in January, and you may as well get new sheets and towels when you purchase a new fluffy blanket.

The problem is balancing the cost of those nice thick sheets against the actual usage they’ll have in the guest room. Since the kids rarely stay overnight any more, ours gets used maybe 4 or 5 times a year. Put a set of $150.00 sheets on there, and even if they last several years before the pattern becomes dated, that’s a pretty high cost-per-sleep.

They become about as un-economical as that new suit for a funeral.

I thought I’d found a deal on one of those “all-in-one” sets. New comforter, pillowcases and sheets and it was on sale. Unfortunately, the labels on those things are harder to read than the ingredient list on a can of soup (especially without your glasses, which is another story), so when I got it home and unpacked I realized that these sheets were about a 25 thread count.

Honestly, you could see through them and no amount of fabric softener is going to make them feel luxurious. They’re going to get folded up into the hide-a-bed, and the Aztec prints from 1976 can finally be retired to the basement as dropcloths.

So today's errands still involve finding sheets to go in the guest room, which is about like trying to buy a swimsuit in December.  Choices are few, cost is high.

But it's worth it when your guests feel like they're in a fabric softener commercial and are special and you're glad they've decided to come and visit you.