As I was flipping through the latest issue of “Southern Living,” I almost spewed out my coffee when I ran across the story, “How do I make the perfect bed?”
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Southerners for knowing how to make fried chicken and a mean barbecue, but this is where we practical Midwesterners draw line between us and those slow-talking Southerners with the impeccable hospitality.
Beds are for sleeping, not for making.
I might be exaggerating, but Minnesotans don’t write letters to lifestyle magazines asking how to fold fitted sheets. We wad them up and stuff them in the linen closet and call it good. Really, Martha Stewart, who cares? They’re in a closet! One of those things with a closed door that only the rudest of guests would dare open?
Among the tips in this story on, cough, making the bed was this gem: “Iron the sheets. Whether you send them out to be pressed or do it yourself with plenty of starch, ironed sheets add a polished touch.”
Send them out to be pressed?! When did Southerners start living on another planet?
For me, the “polished touch” on the guest bed is clean sheets, not ironed ones.
Phoebe Howard, the southern etiquette master answering the magazine’s plaintive letters, added that she likes Washed Cotton Linen Water. What?! Tide. Tide is good. What is linen water?
I hate making the bed and I do it only when my mother or mother-in-law are visiting or I’ve washed the sheets (washed, not ironed). Why make the bed when it’s just going to get unmade again in 12-14 hours? I’m too busy for that. Or perhaps too lazy, but I can’t be the only Midwesterner with a strong-backed work ethic who would cop to that.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go mix and match my charger plates and the tiny little plates to hold pats of butter called “butter pats” (another useful bit of hospitality advice shared in the magazine). Where are my butter pats anyway?
Hehe! When I lived in Russia we ironed the sheets, and the pillowcases, and everything! We also didn’t have dryers, or fitted sheets for that matter 🙂
Now that you live in Minnesota, the big question is, do you STILL iron your sheets?
oh dear lord NO, I don’t like using the dryer too much though, I believe it ruins a lot of things though 🙂
I never iron sheets but I DO make my bed because I like the feeling of climbing into smoothed out sheets.
I am with you, the time to make beds is when company is coming or you have just taken the sheets from the dryer. Guess I am a mid-westerner at heart! However, I will tell you that both my parents think I am a complete slob because I don’t make my bed DAILY complete with all of the throw pillows like they do. Thank goodness I have my own house!!
Make the bed daily, ha! Insanity! (I knew you were a midwesterner at heart!)
I read somewhere that making the beds invites the dust mites and other little critters to stay where it is dark and warm – another reason to not make the bed in my opinion!