OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE — Adventures in Linens

This about sheets. Yeah, I said sheets. The kind you sleep on.

I say it’s out of my comfort zone, because I can’t recall ever having written about housewares. Or adventures in sheet buying. Or lifesaving sheet moments. Or mattresses, beds, pillows, etc.

Sheets.

You would think it’s a simple subject. Some material, some elastic, a stitch here and a stitch there, and presto, a good night’s sleep.

Well, let me tell ya’…

The stuff I didn’t know about sheets could fill a — admittedly small — book. But you’ll have to look all that stuff up yourself. No, this is about the Restaurant at the End of the Universe of sheet shops. (If you’re a Doug Adams Hitchhiker fan, you’ll get the reference. If not, well, become one. And thanks for all the fish.)

Now, I’ve slept in lots of less-than-comfortable places in my life. On airport floors, under triple canopy jungle, in snow-and-ice-covered tents, erect-six-across airplane seats for 18-hour flights, cars, boats, pickup truck beds, sandbag-floored Hummers, track-throwing BFVs, and one extremely thin and hot mattress in a house of ill repute in Vung Tau ...  and more. But when I sleep in my bed, I want a comfortable one, y’know?

What constitutes a comfortable bed for me?

A decent mattress, 650-count or better Pima or Egyptian cotton sheets, a lightweight comforter and a cold pillow (of late, one of those high-density contoured foam pillows is seeing more-than-limited duty when my neck hurts. Don’t ever jump out of a perfectly good airplane and land on your head. It plays hell with your top six-or-so vertebrae). That’s not asking for much, is it?

Now. Go to a store and buy a set of sheets. Go ahead. I bet the fitted sheet in every sheet set you’ll find has something somewhere on it that notes, “fits to 18 inch mattress,” or “23 inch,” or somesuch.

Well guess what? If you’re mattress ain’t at the top end of that number, you’re going to end up with a fitted sheet that doesn’t fit Jack Shit, and wrinkles into ridges high and hard enough to serve as a cheese grater for your not-so-delicate dermis.

I ain’t no Princess and the Pea, but trying to find sheets to fit my 10-inch mattress was impossible. My wife said so, and, generally, that’s good enough for me. But I wasn’t buying it this time.

Gotta’ be on line, right? Welllll … a lot of tantalizing close come ons, ended up with “fits to 23 inches,” etc.

Two days worth of searching and learning everything there is to know about mattresses and sheets, and — finally — I stumbled upon someone who understands my problem — Cozytown Linens.

Your fitted sheet doesn’t fit your mattress? Call these folks up or order from their website www.cozytownlinens.com. You WILL NOT be disappointed.

The fitted sheet is custom made to the size you order. Before they make the sheet, they e-mail you and advise you to make sure you did what they already told you to do insofar as measurements are concerned.

(FYI: Not all mattresses, regardless of name — i.e., queen, king, California ya-da, ya-da — are the same sizes. Not in length, width and especially not in depth).

Their prices are reasonable for quality linen. I ordered a queen-size set, custom made to my mattress, with four pillowcases. Pima cotton, 650 thread count, $199 or so.

I drooled on the thought of them and they arrived in about seven days and were worth every single penny.

If you wanna’ be comfortable for that brief period of time you’re lying on your back zeeing out, these are the people you want to buy your sheets from.

Forget about all the BS from everyone else. THIS is the real deal. Sheets that actually fit YOUR bed. And you ain’t buying them anywhere else.

You want comfortable, fitted sheets. Go to Cozytown Linens. Period.

Cozytown Linens, www.cozytownlinens.com. They’re outta Pelzer, South Carolina, so you’re also getting American made. Toll-free number is 864-236-4968.