Facts & Arguments is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
Know me. I am a man, newly widowed. I am a man. I can do things. I can do things other men can do. I can even do things that many women can do. But like other men, I am ashamed to admit there are a very few things I cannot do. Such as hold my right elbow in my right palm. Know me. I am a man. Many many things I can do, and do them well.
I mastered the washing machine weeks ago. I put cold-water detergent in the little pullout drawer thingy. I twirl the dial around to normal wash. I make sure the front door of the washer locks so clothes do not come flooding out on the laundry-room floor. I can sit patiently in a chair facing the washer and watch the clothes slop this way and that for 30 minutes and then spin madly for another 10. I can do this, and I have done this for three washings.
I am a man. I can do things.
I have also mastered the clothes dryer. I put the pretty-wet clothes from the washing machine to the dryer adding one of those nice softening sheets that, according to the package, will make my clothes smell like a spring breeze. I set the dial for a 45-minute session and sit patiently in front of the machine until it dings. I can do this. I have done this. I am a man. When the clothes stop spinning and the machine dings, I open the door. Everything smells wonderfully like a spring breeze, even my seven pairs of white sport socks. I remove them and do my best to match them, although there are usually only 6 1/2 pairs. I go back to the washer and there is one white sock hiding halfway up the washing-machine drum. I put the wet sock on a hanger to dry and be reunited with its lonely mate some other day, knowing meanwhile that I must launder again in six days instead of seven. I fold my seven pairs of underwear. I fold my seven-day bath towel. I even fold the seven-day queen-size sheet. I say aloud a prayer for the genius, a man no doubt, who invented no-iron everything.
(A widower friend, in desperation, used to wear all his clothes in the shower, washing himself with liquid laundry detergent and then hanging his clothes to drip-dry overnight. I wish I could say he looked splendid in his clothes. He did not. They were rumpled. And after a few washings, they shrank. No matter. Jim was a driver for the Toronto subway. Who could see him in the subway cab as it hurtled by? Who could complain that his uniform trousers were four inches too short?)
I apologize. I ramble. My old English teacher would have said I was padding. A psychiatrist might say I was avoiding a difficult truth. (What wag said denial is not a river?)
The truth. I am a man. I can do the wash every seven days. I can sit before a clothes dryer for 45 minutes until it dings. I can match white sport socks with the best of them. I am a man. Then why in heck can't I fold a fitted bedsheet? Women do it all the time. My beloved wife did it while watching a soap opera with her eyes closed.
Have you seen one of these horrors up close? It looks like a perfectly harmless bedsheet, except on each of the corners there is elastic meant to fit all four corners of the mattress. There, as Shakespeare would say, is the rub. Those elastic corners are the bourn from which no traveller returns. The Bard's Hamlet knew his fitted bedsheets. Anne Hathaway shared Shakespeare's second-best bed because his best had ordinary flat sheets.
(Where was I?)
Oh yes! I try folding the fitted sheet like an ordinary sheet, but to no avail. Which is the long way and the short way? The length and the width are distressingly similar. That can't be right. An attractive divorcee who brought me chicken soup told me to put my fists in the elastic corners. I did so. Then what? I tried laying the sheet on the floor and lying on it. (Note the proper use of lie and lay, a tricky grammatical problem for many, but not me. I am a man.)
(Where was I?)
Oh yes. I am lying full-length on the family-room floor with hands and feet reaching for the four elastic corners. Almost. I am not quite tall enough to reach all four corners at once. As I lay there … whoops! … as I lie there, I wonder why I thought this was a useful strategy in the first place. I rise. The fitted sheet, as if to mock me, brings all four corners toward the centre. I swear.
No to be outdone, I have one remaining ploy. Why not simply put the fitted sheet on the mattress?
I drag the protesting sheet upstairs. (Har! Har!) The mattress awaits. I fling the fitted sheet to its doom. I put it on upside down! There is a little white label that should be underneath! I flip the sheet over. I stretch it top to bottom. It doesn't fit! I rotate it. It still won't fit! It must fit! This is the same bed it stretched to fit last night! I curse some more. Cursing is what men are allowed to do when they can't cry.
I sleep that night on the bare mattress. I am a man. I can do what I like.
(I must invite the attractive divorcee to come over for soup and show me the fitted sheet trick with her fists.)
John Gertridge lives in Waterloo, Ont.