What a load of sheet

Home Centre is having a sale. I decided to get rid of my old bed and replace it with a decent over-size example, and as there's a special offer of effectively 25% discount, I went to the bed department and made my choice.

Now, a King Size bed is substantially larger than my existing one, so none of my bed linen will fit. Logically therefore, it would make sense to buy some new sheets. And at this point the problems started.

The Home Centre bed frame requires a mattress the same size - logically. And the mattress was indeed available. Made in the UAE, I might add. But I was naive enough to assume that sheets to fit the mattress would also be available. I was sort of right; there was one sheet in an acceptable colour. The other half-dozen or so fitted sheets were lurid pink and livid vermilion. I am not macho enough to own and sleep on pink bedding.

HC: "But this 2.0m sheet will fit, sir."

GG: "Prove it. Put it on the bed in the shop."

HC: "See. It fits!"

GG: "Only if you want me to sleep on a banana-shaped mattress. If I lie on that the sheet will rip. Thank you, but no."

In summary, Home Centre's stock of sheets to support the bed sizes they're selling is extremely limited.

A quick check on Wikipedia, and then I was off to the Mall of the Emirates, armed with the following piece of information:

Bed size 72" x 84" is 'California King' (also 'Western King' or 'West Coast King'), which is the standard size for a king-size bed on the Pacific coast of the United States.

Sadly, it is not a standard size in any of the myriad bed shops in the MotE. No-one had fitted sheets 2.1m long, and no flat sheets were big enough. Most shop assistants looked at me when I asked for 1.8m x 2.1m bed linen as if I'd grown an extra head. I eventually resorted to buying the biggest flat sheet I could find, and then taking it to the tailor.

I always use the same tailor, because he's reliable, accurate and cheap. His assistant was less helpful. After explaining with diagrams that I wanted corners and elastic putting into this flat piece of cloth, he decided fifteen minutes into my explanation that although he said he understood, in fact he didn't. Remember this is someone who's capable of turning flat cloth into the complicated shapes necessary to hug a human body and look good. But a rectangular mattress defeated him. Almost one of those, "Manuel, let me explain" moments.

I am relieved to report that I finally found a couple of sheets, and the tailor eventually got it right. This is just as well. The old bed was taken away yesterday and the new one arrived this afternoon. It's enormous!