by viv sade

My day does not go smoothly if the bed is not made to perfection every morning.

The guy who lives with me — only ’cause I guess that’s what married people do (who knew?)— would crawl out of the same heap of sweaty sheets and covers every day of the year and never smooth the linens, fluff the pillows, straighten the comforter or arrange the decorative pillows if he had his way. He would never, ever launder them.

“Why? We’re just going to mess them up again in 16 hours,” he says with real sincerity.

Bed making is a habit instilled in me by a mother who grew up during the Great Depression and had few luxuries like sheets, pillowcases or bedspreads. She would spend the rest of her life buying an excessive amount of linen while honing —  and teaching her children — the fine art of quality bed making.

Here’s the rule: The first one downstairs in the morning feeds the cats and cleans out the litter box. The last one out of the bed makes the bed.

I am an early riser and the Significant Other is a late nighter so the bed making usually falls to him. He is not happy about this.

He reasons that while sustaining life (as in feeding the cats) is a necessity, making the bed is not. Besides, as he often points out, there are enough pillows to equip an entire Army Guard infantry regiment.

The Sig Other is of the same opinion as Hoosier comedian Jim Gaffigan when it comes to making beds: “Making the bed is like re-tying your shoelaces after removing your shoes.”

I quit listening to S.O.’s grumblings years ago, so when I recently redecorated, he resorted to leaving notes stating his displeasure at the new comforter and decorative pillows.

The first note said, “I have had no formal training on what to do with this pillow. Zero!”

He later decided to rearrange the pillows according to his Man Eye, which is useless when it comes to chic decor concepts.

Instead of the casual, yet symmetrical combination of colors, textures and placement that I had pre-approved, he had mixed clashing hues and fabrics in an asymmetrical jumble.

My OCD went into overdrive. But since I also have ADD, it didn’t last long. 

Our intimate, heartfelt pillow talks have continued over the years, although admittedly we have never resolved this issue.

Our pillow talks usually morph into colorful — yet chic and asymmetrical —pillow fights, and always end with S.O.’s astonished cry of, “You’ve got to be kidding me — another $#@%ing pillow?!”