I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I can’t put my finger on it, I have a lot of stuff going on, stress, life. But the other thing is that if I wake up early, in addition to thinking “I should really get back to sleep,” I also think “I CAN WATCH EXTRA TV!”
Because when I was growing up, I didn’t have a TV in my room, not even after we fled the evil Communists and settled in cozy Reaganesque America. Even then, Mama and Papa had a bit of the Big Brother outlook towards TV and restricted my access. It’s amazing I survived at all.
So now when I wake up early, I look through the saved shows on the DVR. Sometimes I’ll go with a Friends or the New Adventures of Old Christine episode, both perfect shows, IMO, but there are other mornings when I’ll select a Law & Order. SVU is by far my favorite, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them all at this point, twice, so I’ll often choose a plain Law & Order. And that’s what I did last Sunday when I woke up at an Ungodly Hour.
It was an episode that started off with great promise- two divorce attorneys married to each other were murdered in their bed– but then things quickly unraveled and we learned that they were murdered because they were investigating a child slave ring. The way this particular child slave ring worked (in case there are different options out there) is that NYC couples would “adopt” children from Haiti and then basically give them “chores” from morning to night.
I hate when the plot involves children and children getting hurt mostly because I have a huge heart that bleeds for human pain and suffering, even when it’s fictional, but also because I can’t stand child actors. Not everyone is Shirley Temple, you know. But whatever, I am really anti-slavery, so I watched. And then it happened.
There’s a scene where the cops burst in and go to the basement and see a small child ironing sheets. That’s right. Ironing sheets.
And it hit me.
Maybe the reason that I don’t sleep well is that I’m sleeping on wrinkled sheets. I mean, I just wash them, dry them, and quasi-fold them. I know there are videos and tutorials and PhD programs about how to fold a fitted sheet, but I’m someone who gives exactly zero fucks about that. So my sheets are always wrinkled, much like a wild animal’s. (Full disclosure: I also have leopard print sheets, so it’s that much closer to a wild animal.)
Anyway, I am sort of obsessed with having ironed sheets now. I am looking into non-slave options for that, but all my friends that I’ve spoken to live with wrinkled sheets too. Of course I met them all at the local chapter of Insomniacs Anonymous, so it’s not very surprising.
