Envelope Corners

I always made my bed when I was younger. It was just one of those things we did. If we didn’t, my mom would literally have us called home from school to do it. I remember the morning my brother’s name was announced over the speaker system. He was in a different class so I didn’t get to see his face, but I felt his pain.

“R. W. Your mother would like you to return home to make your bed”

Yikes! Can you imagine anything more embarrassing for a 5th grader? I can’t believe the office staff agreed to do that.

So, R walked home. Made his bed. Then returned. Thankfully I learned a valuable lesson from my older brother. I never, NEVER left the house without making my bed.

And our beds couldn’t just be straightened.

Tight, folded, neat.

It had to be perfect, right down to the envelope corners that my mother painstakingly taught us.

Fold under, fold up, tuck in, fold down.

A bed was not properly made unless the envelope corners were executed perfectly. Afterall, envelope corners kept the sheets in place while you slept, which made it so much easier to make in the morning.

Which we did.

Every morning.

Always.

I stopped making my bed every morning a few years ago. Maybe almost a decade ago. You see, I married a wonderful man who knows nothing of envelope corners. In fact, I was so surprised as a young married girl, to see his siblings beds – none with envelope corners.

I didn’t realize you didn’t HAVE to make beds with envelope corners – or make them at all for that matter.

After a few years of sharing a bed with a sweet, non-envelopian, I gave up. There isn’t a fold invented that could keep my husband from twisting all of the sheets around his warm body, wadding them in a pile at the foot of the bed, then kicking them to the floor – on his side. I have been known to keep spare blankets on the floor by MY side of the bed, just so I have a back up. I have also learned how to wrap my feet around the blankets, so they don’t move when he tugs.

Yesterday, we celebrated our 15th year of marriage. Fifteen wonderful, blanketless nights. And as we drifted off to sleep and Hubby pulled the covers, I thought of envelope corners. I thought how happy I was that I never have to fold another sheet just so. I thought of how happy I was that I have someone to pull the covers away.

And if I had to do it all over again, I would. I would choose this wonderful man as mine even if I knew he would ruin every envelope corner I ever folded.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetie.