I rest my case(s)

Right before I left my job as a buyer (with an employee discount) at a major national retailer over four years ago, I went ahead and bought Mr. Crackers & myself brand new sheets. They were expensive sheets with a really high thread count. Oh, how we love our sheets. It was quite a splurge for us, but we knew it was probably the only chance we'd have to get them so cheaply.

Uncharacteristically, I thought ahead and bought 2 sets of sheets. They were on sale & I knew I would be losing my employee discount, so it seemed the smart thing to do. As with most things I do, I made a small error in judgement. For some reason (that still baffles me) even though I bought 2 sets of sheets, I only bought 1 set of pillow cases.

Both Mr. Crackers & I love the feel of clean sheets, so I wash our sheets & pillow cases every week. We've had them for about 4 1/2 years, so according to my calculations I've washed this set of pillow cases about 235 times. Do you want to know what happens when you wash your pillow cases that much? They start to look like this:

They are disintegrating right before our eyes. Every time we try to take them off or put them back on the pillows, our ears are accosted by the sound of tearing cotton. Notice the way the trim is completely detached in many areas from the rest of the pillow case. Last week, we lost half the trim off of one of the cases. The kids were using it as a headband. And I can't tell you how many times I've recently gotten my arm twisted in the gaping holes that have formed in our beloved cases.

Mr. Crackers & I have been trying to cut back on our spending, so we've tried to put off getting new sheets. We've come to the point now though that we may be just one washing away from their total destruction. So, I started pricing out really nice sheets & I came to this conclusion: we can't afford really nice sheets.

Holy Egyptian cotton! I think that perhaps they are now starting to weave pure gold into high thread count sheets. I can't figure out why else my former employer would charge $200.00 for a King size flat sheet ON SALE! Good grief, if I want to replace my sheets and pillowcases I would have to spend over a million dollars! OK, so it wouldn't be quite a million, but it might as well be!

In a stroke of pure genius, I have decided that since our sheets are in relatively good shape, all we really need to do is get new pillow cases. While we still can't afford the $96.00 my former employer wants to charge for pillow cases, I figured I should be able to find really nice quality pillow cases from a different department store without having to re-finance my home a third time.

I went out today & found what seem to be really nice ones for $24.99 a pair. Compared to the $96.00 I saw at the other place, I felt like I was getting a pretty good deal. I may be slow witted, but I do learn from my mistakes, so I did buy two sets this time. I have a set in the washer now so we can test drive them tonight. If I get a thumbs up from Mr. Crackers I'll go ahead and wash the second set too.

I am hoping our sheets hold out for a few more years. I don't want to even think about spending the money to replace them anytime soon. I guess I should probably start playing the lottery, or learn how to weave. Knowing my domestic skills the lottery is probably a better bet.