Deep Sheets

When I got divorced, I became a dunce. Seriously, I felt like sticking a pointy cap on my head and sit in the corner with a drool cup. I had to learn how to do very basic things in life, like pump gas into my car. Once, I accidently splashed myself with gas and some got in my eyes and in my mouth (yes, I then swallowed because I'm a dunce), and than splashed it all over my car and the ground. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the other people pumping gas. Everyone got very still, very quiet. The woman in the car behind me shouted, "NOBODY SMOKE!" It was embarrassing. Another time, I had a check to deposit. I can't make money, but as it turns out, I can't deposit it. I had to call my friend Robby and say, "How do I deposit a check?" He said, "Serious? Are you serious?" Robby is used to me asking stupid questions. I've had to ask him how to boil water. I had to learn how to do laundry and fold clothes. My pal Carla taught me how to do that. She is the Martha Stewart of my life. She told me once, "you need an Allen wrench." Or maybe it's an "Alan Wrench." I can pronounce what she told me I needed, but not spell it. Anyway, my friends taught me how to do these really basic things that are ordinary stuff for other people, but somewhere along the way, no one remembered, and I was too ashamed to ask: how do I successfully change the sheets on my bed. Specifically, the fitted sheets?

I Googled it and didn't get a good answer. I read Real Simple backwards and forwards, and didn't get an answer. So I struggled with my sheets every time I had to change them. What may take you five minutes took me an hour. Sometimes, I lay on my bed, one end of the fitted sheet curled around my head, another end cuddling up to my foot, and I would just cry because I couldn't figure out a damn fitted sheet. I have written novels, I've launched marketing programs in Mumbai, Belgium and Hong Kong, I can write a zippy headline that makes you laugh, I can figure out how to budget a department annually, and, damnit, I can boil water. But I cannot put a damn fitted sheet on my bed.

So I spoke to my own personal Martha Stewart yesterday, my pal Carla, and I told her, "I haven't changed my sheets in six weeks. In the morning, I throw the cover off and open the windows and air out the bed." Carla said two words to me. Two simple words. "Deep Sheets."

Not only are great thinkers and oceans deep, but sheets can be deep, too. In fact, the sheets I had on my bed, I realized, were deep sheets. The reason I didn't change them was because I hadn't had to struggle to put them on. So I dug through my linen closet and found another pair of sheets that I had previously thought were King sheets that I accidentally ended up. They weren't. They were deep sheets! I put them on the bed, and it took less than five minutes.

Clean sheets smell good. They smell like joy. They smell like health. The smell bed bug free.

In a world where Hillary Clinton can't win the nomination, where Israel says a conflict with Iran is unavoidable (yeah, more war!), where people I know live in fear of eating dog food and living on the street because they are on the verge of getting unemployed, it's nice that fresh sheets can make my day. They won't put food on the table, they won't lower gas prices, and they won't keep the Middle East from blowing up, but for me, it's a small victory. Now I'm going to lie down.