I have discovered the perfect sheets for the guest bedroom.

Perhaps you are aware of the Bedouin tradition of accepting any visitor to their camp for three days?

Even their enemies (assuming they don’t get nailed before asking for refuge.) I have been told by more than one Arab friend that I have the heart of an Arab. I took that as a compliment. And now I have the perfect solution for making sure that your guests don’t exceed that three day time limit and force your hand into asking them to leave. Polyester sheets.

A few weeks ago one of my favorite sets of bed linen announced that it was moving on to the promised land (becoming rags for cleaning my guns.) I immediately (well, after a week or so) went to Walmart and commenced my shopping trip in traditional male fashion: get it and get out.

Now the cheapskate in me popped to the surface and took control. Why would you buy the 80,000,000,000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets for 6 bazillion dollars when you can get this really neat set of polyester ones that not only cost under $30, but they come in their own little stuff sack so the set doesn’t become a bunch of loners after you take it out of the dryer? As Eric Cartman says, “Cooh!”

And thus they went home with me. And into the washer. Three washings to get all the excess dye out of them. And a few days later onto the bed. Man, they looked all shiny and nifty. My twisted little brain thought, “This will be just like silk sheets! Sweet!” Not so much.

Night number one I darned near fell to my death when I sat on the edge of the bed and slid to the floor like an avalanche of mine tailings bursting their dam in a rain storm. By the third night I was tired of being cold from the chest up as the sheets inexorably slid toward the end of the bed. Polyester on polyester has no friction. However, if you turn over against the fabric’s grain it leaves you with a bit of a rug-burn.

After a week I had taken a new approach to the problem: I wasn’t going to let the sheets beat me. Sure, it stunk on ice not being able to sleep through the night between the rug-burn and the shivering but I was certainly tougher than a set of cheap sheets! After all, hadn’t I slept on a rubber mattress with no sheets at all in the transient barracks? Hadn’t I slept on countless marble floors waiting for aircraft in the Navy? And most of all, hadn’t I made it through last winter with the hockey rink banging away across the street?

Yes to all of the above. And no to toughing it out. The sheets are in the dryer right now after being carefully laundered. I’m going to hold a contest among the subscribers to the blog. Subscribe to the blog in the next ten days. In two weeks I will have a post asking for you to send a comment, 50 words or less, as to why I should mail the sheets to you. Only subscribers will be eligible to win. I will take the most articulate (read: most trivial and mean spirited) comment and publish it on the blog. Include your address when the time comes so that I can mail these things to you.

I’m back to cotton sheets. And, if you’re the lucky winner, you will have a set of lovely, queen sized, polyester sheets guaranteed to rid you of the most dedicated house guest in three days or less. I’ll include a recipe for Kufta so you can feed any Bedouins that want to try the sheets.