The Unmade Bed

Erma Bombeck once said that no one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed.  That might be true but it brings back memories of my Mama’s stern face as she ordered me to make up my bed each morning.  At the time I always wondered if I did not make up my bed, would I live to see the next unmade bed?

Okay, so that was a bit of an exaggeration.  Still, my Mama was strict and she had her rules and making up the bed was one rule that was not to be broken.  She did put the fear in me.  As a small child it was no problem for me or Mama because I thought that making up my bed seemed like fun.  It made me feel all grown up to be doing something so adult-like.  

Fast forward a few years and I was over that pretty quickly.  By the time I was ten or eleven years old, I no longer saw the point in making up my bed.  I mean, really, in just 12 more hours or so I would be crawling back in the bed and messing it up again.  What was the point?   Mama’s stance was more or less, don’t ask stupid questions.  Just make up your bed.  End of discussion. 

I did try to reason with Mama.  But there was no reasoning with that woman about an unmade bed.  It simply didn’t happen in our house.  No way.  No how.  So I made up my bed every single day while I lived under Mama’s roof.  And that was that.

When I married at 21, oh, the freedom I felt!  Just to spite my Mama, I did not make up my bed.  I was the master of my domain now and the same old reasoning still made sense: why make up a bed in the morning that I would just be crawling right back into that night.  Boy, it felt good to get back at her.  Of course, she never knew that because I never told her.  And if I knew she was coming over to my house, I rushed to make up my bed before she got there.  The fear of Mama was alive and well.

I don’t know exactly when I started making up my bed every morning.  I do remember that one day I realized that even if the rest of the bedroom was not as spotless as it should be, simply making up the bed would transform the room into some semblance of order.  So the habit began and I turned into my Mama.

To this day If I’m running late and don’t have time to make up the bed, it will be the first thing I do when I get back home even if it’s bedtime.  I know it won’t kill me, but I really cannot stand to crawl into an unmade bed.