We’ve reached the worst part of the NFL offseason: the very beginning; the furthest possible time from meaningful football. Do any of us even know what we’re doing this coming Sunday? Get up early, turn on the television, and there we have either The 700 Club, or a rerun of Xena: Warrior Princess (because Saturday and Sunday afternoon programming are tight like that). We’re here with you in all your frustrations, so get ready to regularly ball up your fists and punch the air, like a kid at a hardcore concert, as we continue on our off-season tradition of This Week In F–k You, with our first entry of 2014, duvets.
It’s not really the duvet that’s the problem. As Tyler Durden once told (SPOILERS!) himself, “it’s just a blanket”.
The ruiner of mornings and sucker of time is the duvet COVER. However, if the duvet didn’t exist then then cover wouldn’t either. KILL THE HEAD AND THE BODY WILL DIE!
Keep in mind, I have a king sized bed… NO BIG DEAL. Well, kind of a big deal. I’m a tall man, so the king sized bed is a luxury I’m never going to give up. When someone spends the night, I can still stretch out and not have to deal with volcanic heat from some partner who is freezing and needs my man heat, unlike in a S-S-S-Single Bed. When I’m alone, oh boy does it get better. I put two pillows in the middle and two big ones flanking it, and stretch out like the Vitruvian Man, or like that guy Axel in Twisted Metal. You spend half your life in bed, so get a big one. Don’t call me out saying that duvets would be easier to manage if I just had a smaller bed. Once you go king, it’s totally a thing.
Here’s how my relationship with my duvet cover goes. First, the genesis of the struggle is always “Oh, there are people coming over and my duvet cover looks like a Civil War surgery tarp for whatever reason (note: probably from eating in it, or cranapple juice). I’d better wash it.” Unzipping the bottom of it, I’m reminded that it’s much like a zipper on a pair of jeans, except without that little tab on it, so let’s fumble around trying to figure out how to unzip it without something to pull on. I guess I’ll just jam my finger in there, going against every instinct I have on getting body parts between the teeth of a zipper. After I manager to rip the duvet out of the cover, I am immediately taken away to a potential scenario where all my sheets, pillowcases and all, are clean and I climb into bed that night and am whisked away to a place I’ve only experienced during day time television commercials; a blissful moment where the world is a meadow, and I’m straight up pollinating it. So, I figure “Let’s wash the entire bedding!”
Shut up, IKEA. There’s no such thing.
Once I manage to take all the cloth from my hypoethetical Cribs-style “This is where the magic happens” cliche from my bed to my washer, I cram it all in there and let the machine do it’s thing while I do a little prayer that I never lose my current station in life if only for the risk of one day having to deal with shared, coin laundry again, like in my early twenties. “Oh! One of my neighbours just ripped my underpants out of the dryer before they were finished and left them on the floor! Now I have soaking wet underwear (ahem) and just wasted $1.50! Perfect!”
Come dryer time, this is where my heart sinks into my ankles. I SHOULD remember to do the duvet up, but it’s just a soaking wet mess and I don’t want to fiddle with it. I do what every man does: I grab the entire mass and cram it into the dryer as quickly as possible, forfeiting the rest of my day from here on out.
An hour and bit later, the alarm goes off, and WOW, nothing is dry. Not even close! The fitted sheet is crammed inside the duvet and is tied in a Celtic knot around the other sheet. The dryer just bonded them together as a high thread count Brundlefly! Too bad, because now my company is coming over and my enormous bed just looks like hell with the bare naked duvet on it, and half the guests are assuming I shit the bed because of my week long bender. Excellent. Well, let me make you an uncomfortable cocktail. Put your coats on the bed. Oh you don’t want to? Of course you don’t.
Another hour and another damp excavation of twisted mess. Let’s go for round three! That Bounce sheet is probably just a hypothetical rectangle now, existing only in algebraic theories. No wait, I found that itchy fucker stuck in the duvet cover as I slept the following night. 4am is the perfect time to undo a king sized duvet to dig out a piece of what’s probably carcinogenic fabric.
Putting it on is the best treat. I know the trick. Don’t even start with me on the “turn it inside out and grab the ends of the duvet and do that flip flop thing” because every woman I’ve ever dated has tried to show me that when she’s heard me grumbling from the bedroom, often followed by a patronizing “here, lemme do it” followed by unavoidable tears and usually a break up. 7×7′ blanket inside out maneuvers? Nobody is an expert. I’d need some unholy wingspan to do it properly. Once it’s in, there’s always one side bunched way up, and that’s only if I haven’t put it in sideways. See, the king sized bed isn’t exactly 7×7′, but rather 7×7.2′ or there about. Put the thing in sideways and you might as well have signed up for a rousing game of Settlers of Catan, because you just wasted your entire day and accomplished absolutely nothing.
“Sorry? You just spilled that Boulevardier I made you all over my bed? Cool. Kill me, and then kill yourself please.”