I was enjoying sitting with my buddies at work and eating lunch and the conversation turned, as conversations do, to The Difference Between Generations.
“Jay, do you have a top sheet?”
“What? Of course. I’m not a barbarian.”
And then the question went around the table and, wouldn’t you know it, the next oldest person in the group was thirty-something and he didn’t have a top sheet and the next guy didn’t have a top sheet and the gal on the team mentioned that she has a duvet with a duvet cover that is more comfortable than any sheet and we kept going around the table and I was the only person at the table who still uses a top sheet.
I’ve heard that Baby Boomers are the last generation to go out of their way to get wallpaper for the rooms in their houses (I remember going to Walls, Windows and Whatnots back in the 70’s and being asked to choose between Trains and Navy Boats for my bedroom… I chose trains) and, after we moved out, I don’t think I’ve lived in a house that has wallpaper in it. Wallpaper had its last gasp with the generation that raised me… and, apparently, I am the last gasp of the Top Sheet.
Which doesn’t make sense to me. When I was a kid, I was taught to make my bed the old-fashioned way: pull everything down to the bottom of the bed, raise the sheet up to the top, walk around the bed and tuck everything away nicely, then pull up the middle blanket and walk around to the other side of the bed and make sure that it’s not lumpy or bunched up, and then pull up the top quilt and straighten it and walk around the bed and make sure that it’s right and proper.
Now, I’m not saying that that’s how I make my bed in the current year… but I do pull up the top sheet and make sure that the blankets aren’t *TOO* lumpy. I mean, the kitties have to sleep on it too.
And, when a couple of weeks have passed and it’s time to change the sheets again, the bed gets made bottom sheet, top sheet, top blanket and it’s made the way that I was trained back in that room with the trains on the wallpaper. Which is right. And proper.
And, apparently, kidz these days don’t do that anymore. It’s a bottom sheet and a duvet.
Like a bunch of barbarians.
This weekend is “change the sheets” weekend and, as such, the sheets will get changed and washed as part of the laundry. On top of that, the Elden Ring DLC gets released tomorrow and I am looking forward to trying and failing to get to (spoiler) and so I’ll go back to my old close-to-100% save game from last year and find myself leaping from “woefully underpowered but knows how to fight now” to…
Well, I have no idea. I just hope it’s awesome.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Further Down The Line” by Alan Levine. Used under a Creative Commons License.)
That seems waaaay to warm. I’m on Team Top Sheet for life.Report
I find the idea of a duvet without a top sheet confusing. Would the duvet cover get dirty quickly due to contact with your skin? The top sheet helps keep your duvet cover clean, so you don’t need to change it as often.Report
My UK born spouse (bit older than me, not that he’s happy about that) could teach Sargent Majors about bed making (*), and when in the UK, we don’t have a top sheet, the duvet cover is part of the sheet set and it gets changed weekly. But you have to remember that in the UK you essentially have to sleep with your windows open (**), and you really want to snuggle in a heavy duvet, even in summer.
When in the USA, though, we have a very light duvet and a top sheet, and the duvet cover does not get changed very frequently.
Millennials are discovering duvets the way their elders discovered other aspects of European life
(*) When I, trained by him for decades, make the bed, he still sneaks back and redoes it, because I’ll never make it to his standards.
(**) if you keep your windows tight shut the dampness will run amok and everything will get soon covered in mold.Report
My father came out of his stint in the US Navy a senior petty officer. Nothing was ever quite clean enough for him, nor we kids’ beds made properly. When my wife-to-be and I moved in together, I carefully refrained from remaking the bed after she had done it.Report
We have horrible damp problems in new Zealand too, we just open the windows during the day to circulate the air.Report
I have a top sheet and a comforter. However, I tend to get too hot with my feet under everything. With cats on the bed, especially our old lady who likes to sleep next to me, it can be difficult to get my feet out from under everything to moderate my temperature. A few months ago, I started sleeping under a throw. It’s not too heavy, and I can get my feet out from under it if I need to. I sleep much better now.
Things will probably change come winter.Report
Gotta have something when it’s hot and the ceiling fan is blowing down on you and you’re just a smidge cold, but turning off the fan makes you too hot. 🙂Report
People who claim they wash their duvets? Liars. Every last one of them.
Not much planned for the weekend; I slipped a tire on the tractor and bent the wheel frame… or I bent the wheel frame and cause the tire to slip. Either way I need a new wheel and tire then I’ll figure out how to fix the old wheel. But, it turns out that getting something simple like a new wheel and tire is annoyingly complicated for reasons. So I’m without a tractor for weekend chores; therefore, not much planned for the weekend.Report
My Mom was a nurse, so basic training more reinforced my bed-making training than anything else. Top sheets always and forever.
Not much planned for the weekend, but with two major soccer tournaments running concurrently I suspect I’ll find something to do with my free time.
Enjoy the Elden Ring DLC!Report
a top sheet is a must, seems more comfortable to me.Report
In my climate, a full duvet would be too warm in summer. And I’ve heard STORIES of what a pain it can be to wrestle a clean duvet cover on to one. I’m old-fashioned American I guess: fitted sheet and top sheet, and a quilt on top – for show in the summer (and folded back to sleep), for warmth in the winter.
Three of the rooms in my house have wallpaper but it was there when I bought the place and I can’t be troubled to change it. My mom’s house also has wallpaper, but again, that was put in some 40 years ago.
This weekend – well, it’s brutally hot here now, and I went and did fieldwork early in the week and DESPITE using DEET I now have approximately 80 chigger bites, so I’m staying indoors in the cool and am not doing muchReport
I have always been a very warm sleeper. In the summer, most times even a top sheet is too much, I shove all the covers aside and sleep without any of them. In the winter, a top sheet and single blanket is usually enough. Of course, if I’m sharing the bed in the winter — spouse, pet, whatever — at some point I wake up because I want to roll over but can’t, there’s someone snuggled right up against me to stay warm.Report
Question: Everybody’s either from a foreign country or a GenXer, right?Report
Boomer, and the past is a foreign country.Report
Xennial? I guess? If it’s about the top sheet we used to use them but haven’t in a year or two. I can report that there are some in the linen closet. Currently we are operating under the duvet theory. My wife is in charge of these things and I have no real opinion on the subject. As the man of the house I am just along for the ride.Report