When it comes to making the bed, I can be a stickler. I can actually blame my mom for that. Had it not been for her I would probably just throw the covers up over the pillows and be done with it. Well, maybe not that hasty, but I'd certainly, probably, likely, maybe be a little bit more attentive than that. My bed is made practically every morning. I may miss a day if I intended to change the sheets but didn't get to them, but that is rare. It is one of the few things I am consistent with. Something about going to bed at night in a tidy bed. Kind of like a stress reliever.
My mom would make a bed in minutes and she taught us girls to do the same. She did what some call "hospital corners", but mom said she got those tight, tidy, tucks from her brother who was in the Navy. And you could probably, with a little thought, bounce a quarter off her bed.
Once her bed was made, don't you dare touch it. I don't know what it is about a freshly made bed, but I just want to spread out on it. It just says: "Here I am. Kick back. Stay a while." My mom didn't see it that way. She would shout with such a start that it would scare the living daylights right out of you! You wouldn't think your body could stop, and reverse back to standing within a split second, but you just try sitting on her freshly made bed and you'd find out pretty quick how fast one could defy gravity!
It wasn't until I was married and had kids that I felt that overwhelming urge to "shout someone off my bed"! As a matter of fact, I did do that for a long, long time. Eventually reality set in. I wasn't going to win against a hoard of kiddlings that would stand there and watch me make my bed and then make a bee-line right for it. It was no use to try to stop them. They were quicker than greased lightning. And they didn't seem to notice the effort I had put in or the horror on my face. They were just sweetly planted in the middle of my bed, carrying on as if it were an every day affair. They were happy campers. And I wondered what it must be like to plop in the middle of a tidy bed without cause for alarm. And then I was grateful that I had fought against the urge to shout at them. Now, don't get me wrong. It causes me great angst to see that go down. I love my tidy bed. But I love my kiddlings more. So I deal with it. Maybe I will go back and straighten out the wrinkles later. Maybe. Maybe when I pass by my room and see them I will think of the one who made them. I will smile and again be glad I didn't "shout them off my bed".
At the end of the day, when all is said and done, the covers will be turned back on my bed, and you would never know that it had been graced earlier in the day by some little soul looking for higher ground and a little comfort. How, then, could I deny that? How?
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