in which i alter fitted sheets...

and contemplate murdering habm...

*****

i hope you are sitting comfortably, with a big tall glass of your favourite vino or whatever yanks your chain, because this one's going to be a long one folks... and it's got even longer since i started to write it 3 days ago...

a couple of weekends back, in a fit of pms fueled "need to change my life, let's buy stuff for the house" frenzy i decided it was time for a trip to ikea... ostensibly, the trip was to stock up on serviettes and special favourite chocolate only found in the ikea food store... 320 euros and several hours later we staggered out of the store...

that's a hell of a lot of chocolate... no wait, i found sheets...

it was a particularly momentous occasion... i've only been looking for about a year... and there i was in the bedroom section, looking at colours, patterns and fabrics that i actually liked... a rather tense half-an-hour or so ensued, as we scrambled to assemble a matching set in the correct sizes... love that colour but there aren't any pillowcases left... this colour has a double fitted sheet, but only a single top sheet... etc... and ad infinitum...i call it the ikea dance...

habm started gazing fixedly at the wall, agreeing to every "what about this and this?" combination put in front of him without actually looking... words were had behind the pillow display...

the pile of "possibles" was growing larger and larger by the minue, and a very stupid man mistakenly started pawing through it.. "don't touch those" i snapped... i mean seriously, do not fuck with a woman's pile of stuff in ikea, especially when that woman has pms... startled, the man scuttled away, exchanging a sympathetic look with habm...

back at home, i stripped the bed triumphantly, ready to try out my prizes from the ikea hunting expedition...

"oh my fucking god... i can't believe it"

habm, looking more sullen and hangdog than ever, reluctantly entered the bedroom to see what all the fuss is about...

"the sheets are like half a metre too long.... the doona cover is about half a metre too wide, and the pillowcases are too wide as well... how is that even fucking possible?"

a spate of teeth gnashing, wailing and bed kicking ensued... i may or may not have wept...

apparently we have the weirdest sized bed in the world...

the choices were:

1. take them back

2. live with them the way they were...

3. alter them...

habm dismissed option 1 out of hand because i had opened the packaging.. "what do you mean i can't take them back?? you just watch me take them back"... but even i couldn't face the prospect of yet another year of fruitless searching..

option 2 was short lived... i mean what is the point of fitted sheets if they're not fitted?

habm seized on option 3... "we'll get my sister to alter them..."

i wasn't at all happy with option 3, and less with the added family dimension... for one thing i'm heartily sick of this tendency to take problems home for the inlaws to resolve, and for another i could see that it was going to be an enormous amount of work... measuring, fitting, sewing, fitting again.... i didn't feel comfortable with asking another person to take that on...

then i had a bright idea (or so i thought)... "would your sister lend me her sewing machine, do you think?"

habm was certain she would and bustled off to make the necessary arrangements... anything to placate the pmt monster...

a lengthly conversation ensued, which seemed to involve endless repetitions of "no, no, we'll do it", "no, no, we'd prefer to do it ourselves"... but in the end the battle was won and the sewing machine would be ours for the next few weeks... (or so i thought)...

about 20 minutes later the phone rang again... this time it was mother-in-law... variations on the "no, no, we'll do it", "no, no, we'd prefer to do it ourselves" theme started again and pmt monster started to get a little testy...

realizing that this approach was not working, she changed tack.. "a sewing machine is like a car" she informed us.. "each one has it's own particular quirks and foibles and only the owner truly knows how to drive it"... i found all that a bit rich, coming from a woman who does not possess a driving license, nor has been behind the wheel in her life..

the conversation took a nasty turn and in an effort to placate the mother-in-law hell bent on martyrizing herself over the bedroom sheets, a compromise was suggested.... how about we do the difficult fitted sheets here, (as they would require a bit of fiddling to get them right) and she do the easy, straight line stuff?

"if I'm not doing the whole job, i'm not doing any of it" she shouted and hung up...

great, so by then it was 12.30 on sunday and i had sheets that didn't fit and a pissed off mother-in-law... anytime after midday is a fine time to start drinking, in my book... i reached for the bottle...

the phone rang again, mother-in-law just wanted to tell us that she wouldn't be lending the sewing machine to us after all... now i could have sworn that the sewing machine belonged to sister-in-law, but whatever...

things were just getting better and better, sheets that didn't fit, a pissed off mother-in-law AND no sewing machine... like a grand russian chess master, she had just checkmated me...

(or so she thought)...

after consuming all the alcoholic contents of the fridge a cunning plan began to form...

"does other sister-in-law (ie sister-in-law married to brother-in-law) have a sewing machine??"

oh yes she does, and she's just on her way to mondragón, so she'll drop it off now...

cue victory dance around the living room...

fast forward through a couple of weeks of measuring, cutting, sewing, and fitting... and now i have sheets that look just like the day they came out of the packet... except... THEY FIT!!

and that dear friends was where the story was going to end... with you dazzled by both my skill behind the wheel of a sewing machine, and my extraordinary ability to out-maneuver the martyr-in-law from hell... but sadly, before you fondly imagine the inhabitants of the land of no spice living happily ever after with fitted sheets that fit, there's more...

*****

after such a build up there was great excitement on saturday when the job was done, the sewing machine was packed away and the new bedding was premiered... i admired my new movie-star bed, settled myself into the luxurious crispness of new cotton and drifted off into a blissful slumber...

habm complained that he felt itchy...

ok, no problem... we'll wash them (which i should have done in the first place, but was too lazy and too impatient)

last night, i put the freshly washed new bedlinen on the bed for the second time, and again drifted off to sleep... rudely awoken around 5am by a noise outside i realised that habm was not in bed with me... i went out into the living room and found him on the sofa...

in fact, he had spent most of the night on the sofa...

because he still feels itchy...

and he thinks he's allergic to the sheets...

I. DO. NOT. FUCKING. BELIEVE. IT...

i may actually kill him this time...