Oh Sheet!

The other day Claire came downstairs and told us, wide-eyed, that Scott was up in our room cutting our bed. WHAT?!?!?

We ran upstairs and found Scott sitting on our new-to-us king size bed with a pair of scissors. The fitted sheet I had bought less than 2 weeks ago was riddled with holes:


I would have thought I would get crazy-mad, but I didn't. I had to keep a very solemn face to make sure Scott knew not to do that again, but really all I was thinking was, "Phew!" You see, this is the very first scissors incident we've ever had. How have we gotten to the point where we have a 5 year old and a 3 year old and haven't had scissors problem yet? I guess we're just really lucky. And in the whole scheme of things, it could have been so much worse. Sure the sheets were practically brand new, but they're so replaceable. They are plain white sheets. There's nothing special or sentimental or unique about them. Don't you just love when a problem can truly be solved by just throwing money at it? Not that I like throwing money around, but the $25 I had spent at Ross on the sheet set was a small price considering the cost of many other fabric items in our home (i.e. the comforter that was right next to the victimized sheet, the mattress underneath said sheets, the carpet, the couch). We lectured him a little and then told him he had to help us take off the old sheet and put a new one on. He humbly replied, "Yes sir, Mommy." :)

But here's the problem now. We had an extra fitted sheet because I bought two sets for the sake of washing, so we have something to sleep on for now, but I would like to have a second sheet again like I did before. You know, for next time Scott breaks out the scissors... hardy har har - NOT! (This better not happen again or next time I might go ballistic after all.) Anyway, I would like to purchase JUST a fitted sheet. Not an entirely new set. Apparently this costs more than an entire set.

Huh?

You see, due to the need for marital peace, M and I don't use a flat sheet. I won't get into the bedding tug-of-war that occurred every night when we still had a separate flat sheet and comforter. The bizarre results were seemingly physically impossible bedding distributions by morning. (Note: I still stubbornly maintain that it was ALL M's fault.) Nor will I get into the freakish OCD-like tendencies I have when my skin is in direct contact with a comforter. [Shudder, shudder] Suffice it to say that having a duvet that can be taken off and washed but no flat sheet has saved our marriage and my sanity. It may not be my ideal set up, but compromise is an important part of marriage, right? So buying a sheet set that includes a flat sheet means we end up with nice high-thread count drop cloths. Or fabric for lots and lots of ghost costumes come Halloween. In short, we don't need the flat sheet. And, another long story in itself (basically I'm a sucker for free stuff), we already had king size pillows on our queen bed, so we already had a set of king pillowcases from before. So when we acquired the (FREE!) king bed I really only needed to buy us a couple fitted sheets and one set of pillowcases for us to have the two sets of the sheets we wanted (so we could have one on the bed and one in the wash). But I was (understandably I think) anxious to get to sleep on our newly acquired king-size bed in my whale-like pregnancy state, so I rushed out and bought two entire sets of king sheets at my local Ross anyway. They were cheap and it was a quick solution. Yay. So here is our current king size sheet tally:

6 pillowcases
2 flat sheets
1 fitted sheet
1 fitted sheet full of holes

Now I really don't want to go out and buy a whole new set. That would put our tally to:

8 pillowcases (all less than a year old, all plain white) - that's enough for more pillows than I can think of ways to use, EVEN when trying to get comfortable while pregnant!
3 flat sheets - do you think they'd make good tablecloths???
2 fitted sheets
1 fitted sheet full of holes

That seems silly to me. Why can't I buy JUST the fitted sheet? Sure I can, but only if I buy fancy ones that cost more than the entire reasonably nice sheet set did at Ross. At least this is the case at all the retailers I have checked. And you know, I'd kinda like the extra sheets before this baby arrives so I'm not in the mood to sit around stalking ebay auctions or anything. Any suggestions anyone? Anyone want to bid on an ebay entry that goes something like this:

NEW, Never Used Flat King Sheets and Pillowcases - open package, missing fitted sheet from set