I do not understand fitted sheets. I can take a flat sheet and tuck it under the mattress and make tight corners that won’t come undone. And I can do it in seconds.
Maybe fitted sheets go on a tiny bit faster and require a bit less expertise when you’re making the bed, but all that goes out the window… in spades… when you’re trying to fold the damn things. And do they stay tucked as well as flat sheets on a properly made bed? Absolutely not.
“Oh! But you should watch videos about how to fold the sheets!”
Oh, I have. Mostly they rely on having a large, flat surface like your bed on which to fold the sheets. My laundry equipment is in a detached garage, a good hundred feet from the bed. So any video that starts out with laying the sheet flat absolutely won’t work for me. Before this garage, I was using a laundromat, miles away. Am I supposed to just wad that sheet up and try to carry it along with the clean, folded laundry until I can get it to the bed? That’s a recipe for dropping or dragging some piece of clean laundry in the dirt. The videos that show folding the sheets while standing without a huge clean folding surface are folding crib-size sheets, not the queens I have to deal with. Even the most expert of folders seem to take longer to fold a fitted sheet than it takes me to tuck a flat sheet.
Add to that, fitted sheets take up a lot more space in the linen closet. They have elastic bits that break down way faster than the fabric. They have to match the depth of the mattress (“well, if they’re too big you can just tuck them in” — which is exactly what I do with the flat sheets).
Do we need to talk about how the pockets of fitted sheets trap t-shirts and socks in the dryer so they’re still wet when you untangle them?
And let’s not even talk about ironing fitted sheets. I gave up ironing my sheets years ago, but ironing fitted sheets was way more difficult than flat sheets.
Alas, it’s getting harder and harder to even find flat sheet sets. Want matching sheets and pillowslips? You’re going to get a fitted sheet with that whether you want it or not.
No sheet.
—2p