Who needs a sheet?

I have returned from a fantastic family vacation and am exhausted. Not only did we go go go the whole time, as is my wont (a vacation quote my children are used to hearing is from Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Carribean: “You can sleep when you’re dead!”), but also because hotel sleep is less than ideal for me. This is true for many reasons, but one of the most insidious–and easiest to change–is the lack of bedsheets.

I first noticed this in hotels over a decade ago. I believe the trend started in Europe but has spread to the United States. It’s not true of all hotels–the domestic hotels with breakfast included still seem to have sheets (but mediocre breakfast), and I don’t know what really high-end places do because those aren’t in my budget. But hotels abroad, and the middle-level hotels here in the States, seemed to have jettisoned top sheets in favor of just a duvet (in my family we called these “comforters,” but then we also use sheets). Why is this?

Is it because it is easier to not have to launder a top sheet? But without one you certainly have to launder the duvet cover each time (bonus for comforters: no cover needed!), and that is essentially two sheets sewn together. It can’t be because they don’t want flat sheets at all–these hotels don’t even use fitted sheets like we do at home. (Is it because they are hard to fold?) I know because I investigate each time, just in case there are two flat sheets but they both are tucked in all the way around the mattress. Nope, just the one, unless I’ve already requested an extra sheet. Then maybe 50% of the time there is a second sheet, still securely tucked top and bottom. Why do they think I want this? Just a thin extra layer between me and the mattress?

Most of the time I do in fact request an extra flat sheet. Often, especially out of the country (even in countries where they speak English!), the hotel staff seems bemused by my request. Why would I want another sheet? In the middle of summer? When it’s 90 degrees out and the hotel A/C struggles to keep the temperature below 80? Gee, I don’t know. Throw in a couple of hot flashes for this menopausal woman and you’ve got a recipe for a miserable night. Have these people given up the sheet layer at home, too? Maybe that works if you can crank the temperature down to 65 degrees and snuggle under the weight of the covers, but in my experience with hotel HVAC units that rarely works.

While tossing and turning during one of the last nights on this vacation, I remembered a work trip to New York several years ago where I had the same problem (and this was before hot flashes!). In the middle of the night I was so hot I was standing on top of my bed, holding the ends of the well-sealed duvet cover and shaking it for all I was worth, trying to get the duvet itself to puddle in the other end so I would have just the cover as my, well, cover. Inspiration!

The next morning, I requested an additional duvet for my room. The well-trained desk clerk, who probably thought I was making my husband sleep in a chair, didn’t even blink, but arranged for the extra bedding. The mattress in the room was a little hard, so I left one duvet on the bed, and took the other one completely out of its cover. I then made the bed with one duvet as my mattress pad and the duvet cover as my sheet. The extra duvet was consigned to the end of the bed. Voila! That was the best night’s sleep I got on vacation. Unfortunately it also was the last night of the trip.

Perhaps I’ll just start bringing my own flat sheet.