Three letters to "Judge" John Hodgeman

[conuly]

Note - he's more of a humor columnist than an advice columnist most of the time, but that's what makes him my hands-down fave. In these letters he actually gives some trenchant advice.

1. Emily writes: I have a dispute with my husband, Leonard, over bedsheets. I say the end of the top sheet with the wider hem should be up near the pillows. He routinely places it in any other direction and then falls asleep, so I can’t fix it. This forces me to sleep with a wrong-way sheet, which haunts me. Please order him to do it right.

This all depends on what kind of Leonard you married. I suspect that he knows how to make the bed properly, as I equally suspect that you would not marry a fool. But this leads me to the darker suspicion: that Leonard is doing it wrong on purpose in hopes that you’ll eventually bar him from even trying. I’ll make the order you request, but let me know if he comes up with new ways of getting it wrong. If you find him making a blanket fort or curling up inside the fitted sheet in the middle of the bare mattress, claiming, “It all looks the same when you’re sleeping,” we’ll both know what kind of Leonard he is.

Link one

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2. James writes: My partner, Allie, refuses to accept the possibility that our cat, Bookitty, ate two of our pet guppies. The four guppies — Turbo, Wobbles, Kickflip and Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville — were adopted for my 29th birthday. A few months later, Kickflip went missing, followed shortly by Turbo! I contend that it is at least possible that our cat ate them. Allie believes the other two guppies did it.

I’m no guppy expert. I don’t even know if “Fabian” at guppyexpert.com is a guppy expert. But enough poking around there suggests that male guppies can indeed get bitey when crowded. Does this exonerate Bookitty? Not really. But even if you had video evidence of Bookitty gleefully slurping Turbo and Kickflip down the hatch, Heathcliff style, the true murderer is you. Wobbles and J.B.M. might be monsters. But they need you to help them live as much as they need cute names. Consult a real guppy expert about tank size. (And get a camera on them. I don’t trust Bookitty either.)

Link two

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3. Sean writes: My partner and I have an argument about the novel “Cujo.” She thinks the idea of being trapped in a car by a dog is terrifying. I haven’t read the book, but I’m familiar with the overall scenario, and I don’t think it would be a big deal. Has Stephen King ever met a dog before? At some point it will fall asleep!

The tragedy of “Cujo” is that Cujo is a good dog who makes one bad decision (chasing a rabbit into a cave of rabid bats), loses his mind and ends up hurting the people he loves — just like you! In your blind desire to win a dumb fight, you ran to a national newspaper to madly proclaim: “I am great at literally judging a book by its cover!” When all you had to do was read “Cujo.” It’s very quick and, I think, King’s most affecting novel. You may disagree. But until then I envy your first experience of it, and I hope the ending destroys you as much as it did me, as that is what you deserve.

Link three

Comments

[dissectionist]

Since we’re all posting opinions: flat sheets go straight into the fabric bin, not on beds*. My comfort level is just the duvet inside a duvet cover and nothing else, unless it’s too cold, in which case additional blankets go on top of the duvet cover. Sheets are too thin and prone to twisting around your body during the night, thereby waking you because you’re all tangled up. Duvets inside duvet covers don’t do that and so they are superior.

* Except for the guest bed, because a lot of people are used to having a flat sheet, and I don’t want to put our guests out by having a different bedclothes setup than what they’re used to.

[ethelmay]

I would much rather change sheets than wrestle a duvet in and out of its cover so often, and I would want to have a top sheet handy in case the duvet was too warm anyway. (Usually I have three coverings for my bed, a top sheet, a cotton quilt, and a wool quilt, and pull different ones over me as needed.)

[dissectionist]

Ah, I am a frozen wasteland of a body, so my only variance in my all-season duvet is whether there’s one flannel blanket on top (summertime), two flannel blankets (spring/fall), or two flannel blankets and a wool blanket (wintertime). Nothing but a sheet would mean I’d be up all night shivering. But I also can’t have the blankets directly against my skin, because both flannel and wool are uncomfortable to me.

[melannen]

Same.

Duvets make some sense in places where it's never going to be too warm for a duvet at night, but that is not how it works where I live (I am also an icicle of a person but that changes when the nighttime temps go over 80 deg F). And even then I'd give a lot to not have to deal with a duvet cover ever again.

[full_metal_ox]

My turn: the only bed linens that should be tucked under are the layers that go beneath the sleeper: the mattress cover and the fitted sheet. I do not care to sleep in an envelope.

(Bedtime in a hotel begins with dismantling the housekeepers’ careful handiwork (and discarding most of the bed coverings and pillows, since the hotel bed presentations I’ve encountered, even in the dead of summer, usually seem to have been anticipating the arrival of Queen Elizabeth during a January blizzard.) One blanket and one sheet, to be adjusted at will, since my thermoregulation sucks; one pillow for under my head; one to elevate my legs; one as a platform for my plush traveling companions. All else is excess.)

[lilysea]

I spend a lot of time awake in bed

either sitting propped up in bed reading or internet

or lying on my stomach in bed reading or internet

and flat sheets are perfect for that layer that needs to go between

the loose electric heated throw rug (which is great in winter, or for muscle aches/pains)

and my skin

1. so I don't have to wash the throw rug

2. so the synthetic fibres of the throw rug don't annoy my skin (which can't cope with anything except cotton/bamboo directly touching it)

[dissectionist]

I would definitely not want to wash a throw rug either. I have an electrically heated bed liner (goes between mattress and fitted sheet) and that is a lovely and wondrous thing in the non-summer seasons!