ELASTICATED SHEETS

by Dick Glynne-Jones

Since my wife died eighteen months ago I have had to learn a lot about the domestic chores which she managed without my intervention. One of course is cooking, at which she displayed an expertise which I am learning so slowly that a mild loss of weight is the most obvious result. But before letters of concern come pouring in I should explain that I eat quite well, mostly Tesco Ready Meals and a very useful source called Parsley Box, who deliver vacuum-packed cooked meals that can be kept in a cupboard for six months without being frozen, and then heated by microwave.

I can manage the ironing, mostly, but sheets with elastic corners, or elastic edges all the way round, have proved a problem. Wonderful they are: once fixed on a mattress they stay put and don’t need tucking in every morning. However, as soon as they get a sniff of an ironing board they acquire a life of their own.

Newton’s first Law of Motion (Inertia) states, slightly paraphrased: An object at rest remains at rest unless acted on by an external force.  Pretty damned obvious, eh? But I have news for Sir Isaac: his law does not apply to elasticated sheets.  I have first-hand evidence for this.

The sheet used in the experiment was very large, a sheet for a king-sized bed. I brought it in from the washing line and threw it haphazardly on the floor. I found a corner and held it firmly while I searched for another corner, and when I found one I held both together and began pulling both in the hope of finding the fold created by the two corners in my hand. It soon emerged that the two corners in my hand were diametrically opposed. When eventually I found a new corner it was twisting the sheet against the original, and in trying to turn it to the required shape I had to let go of the original pair, which promptly burrowed their way into hiding.

You saw that coming I expect. It gets worse. After a long and bad-tempered struggle, I did eventually find all four corners. Now all I needed was to fold the sheet for ironing. Unfortunately my arms weren’t long enough to bring all four corners together and simultaneously reach for a central fold; I was forced to let a corner go. It fell gratefully into the muddled morass, where it appeared to be encouraging the other corners to slip from my tenuous grasp. OK that’s just a foolish fantasy induced by what was by now my slightly deranged mind. I collapsed into my armchair.

In my despair I thought of the mythical Sisyphus, who accused of cheating death was punished by having to spend eternity rolling a massive rock up a hill - but every time he neared the top the rock rolled down to the bottom again.

I tried to pull myself together, and to put such negative thoughts aside. I forced myself to reach for what looked like a promising length of seam. Big mistake: as soon as I touched it there was visible protest from the rest of the sheet, which retreated into an even more chaotic muddle.

I’m sorry to say that at this point my morale began to collapse. I picked up the sheet, now nothing more than a disorganised ball, and took it upstairs to the airing cupboard, where I threw it into a space where I hoped it would not be seen. I felt dispirited, cross, and a bit ashamed. No need: I have since consulted several people, most of them ladies of unimpeachable domesticity, about how they ironed elasticated sheets, and they all without exception declared “Oh I never iron them, I just roll them up into a ball and chuck ‘em in the airing cupboard!”