Dear Shane Folks,

My wife sent me the ad for your Make the Bed contest last week. I’d like to enter; I hope I’m not too old. I am recently retired, or what I like to call, “On an extended gap year.” Growing up, making the bed was never a goal, skill set, or even an expectation in our household. 

See, there were ten of us kids; ten birthed in 14 years. When mom and dad set their mind to a task, bless the fecund angels and lock the back door. They were overachievers for the Pope.  I shared a bed with my two older brothers until high school. I didn’t know what a cover sheet was until I slept over at Craig’s house in sixth grade, and he laughed and laughed when he discovered I’d slept on top of said sheet. Cover sheet? 

Full transparency, sometimes we didn’t have clean sheets…or any sheets. I don’t fault my mom; try washing sheets for 10 kids, plus your own sheets, then piles of shirts and blouses and dozens of pairs of underwear and socks, towels and wash cloths, after working at Walgreens all day.  She’d trudge home from downtown, no time to change, make dinner for the herd—hamburger helper again—“no, no dessert, maybe this weekend if you quit fighting” then send me or one of my brothers to Safeway for white bread and a banana so she could make dad’s “dinner” for his nighttime Pinkerton job. 

So, we were pretty much on our own. Making the bed in our house would be akin to Jesus walking on water, the IRS making a mistake in our favor, or Sister Mary Anton forgetting to give us math homework. 

Blankets were scarce too, since we used them to build forts, both inside and outside, summer or winter; we’d cut and pin them for Superman capes, or repurpose them as curtains for our drama productions. 

Pillows? They were the perfect weapons for two-fisted pillow-fights, fort support, or were tied to the end of broom handles for hand-to-hand gladiator combat. You could also stuff the pillowcases with marbles, Legos, gravel, or whatever other cannon fodder was readily available, then launch them across the bedroom at the enemy, real or imagined.  

Growing up I learned rich kids had cover sheets, duvets, electric blankets, slippers, and special grandmas with dainty names who embroidered quilts that won prizes and hung on walls, not on the bed. I still have a recurring nightmare of my overnight stay at Craig’s; not only was I assaulted by a cover sheet, I can still picture the cover of a Better Homes and Garden in the bathroom. A replica of that quilt from the cover, with all its fancy-stitched colorfully displayed zig-zags and triangles, was on Craig’s sister’s bed, replete with a half dozen matching pillows arranged in a half-moon. 

Fast forward. College. Make the bed?  I was dirt poor and sometimes didn’t have a bed. I lived Junior year in my roommate’s closet—cheap rent, filing cabinet for my dresser. I’m not complaining, in my nostalgia head, those were great days, mortgage, quilt, and bed-making free. 

Fast forward again. The first 40 years of marriage. My wife made the bed; taught our sons to make the bed. I applauded from the other side of the bed, admired this great skill she had been taught growing up, while I was simultaneously in another state hiding under the bed from my older brothers. 

And a final fast forward. I’m in my golden retirement years, days filled with, “What the hell am I gonna’ do all day?” And so, my wife sends me this “Make Your Bed” contest. Salvation—with a thousand-dollar prize. Make the bed every day for 30 days? I think I can handle it; I survived banjo lessons, taught English to seventh graders, listened politely without swearing while a friend raved about the Golden Bachelor, and sat through CATS. Twice.

My bed-making technique, barbaric at first, is improving after a week. You really can get better at anything if you pay attention and tune out that ear-worm of Walking On Sunshine jangling your neurons. I now know this extra sheet is a cover sheet; my wife likes hers tucked in. So, I tuck. Then, the pillows. There are seven, just like the Dwarves though I haven’t named these pillows. Yet. Three for her, four for me and all of my neuropathy. At night, I’m supported like an antique vase getting shipped across the sea. 

I stack the pillows, two-two and one on top, square like a marriage, with two out front resting on the pillow stack where I’ll also place all the decorative pillows. I square the blanket, then apply the…wait for it…the quilt. One 8-by-6, made by my mother-in-law, who was a Master quilter. It took her a thousand years, a million stitches, was approved by the architects of the pyramids and even won a contest in her hometown. Now it rests on our bed, placed, smoothed, admired. 

Each day I make the bed. Each day I start with a “task.” Has this daily ritual, this cloth ablution motivated me? Changed, inspired, rewired me? Ok, I’m gonna’ say yes because I wanna’ win the contest and I can use a thousand dollars. 

But seriously, it is surprising what this ritualistic benediction provides. It’s like a little electric charge, a found dollar in a pocket, a really good piece of chocolate to savor while sitting through a boring, death-on-a-stick “Career Rejuvenation” meeting.

Unexpected benefits? My hair’s coming back, I make great stock picks; I’ve lost like two and a half pounds, and I can hold my breath for a really long time.  

But more importantly, my wife loves it. She’s not so worried about me skulking about the house, retired. I have made the bed. I have purpose, I have meaning. Thirty days? I can do that. If Jesus did forty days in the desert, I can do thirty in my bedroom.