Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Sheeting the Bed
I seem to have gone over, though now it seems all too obvious that it was going to happen.
I really didn’t want to think of myself as the sort of person who’d go out of his way to buy a cheaply made product that’s basically an advertisement. I don’t like wearing t-shirts with brand names on them, or to have them on my shoes, or jackets; why should I display someone else’s commercial identity in my own home?
The thing is, Z has been having sleeping issues. We’ve had rather a hodgepodge approach to it for some time – first, hoping that it would just resolve itself on its own, then sort of groping blindly for a reasonable strategy, and then finally finding some good resource materials but having to wait before taking any action until after houseguest season. Now we’re ready to take on the “sleeping toddler” challenge and we’ve got the game plan to make it work. We’ve got so many ideas now that we have to implement in stages. It’s a fairly sophisticated tactical package, really. Can’t say too much here. Walls have ears, you know. (You don’t even want to know what crown molding’s got.)
One of our action items, available for implementation immediately if not sooner, is getting Z some bedsheets that he can be excited about. I’m really surprised how hard it’s been to find decent yet inexpensive toddler sheets for his new big boy bed, but of course there’s a vast conspiracy dire warnings bla bla bla. Anyway last night the opportunity finally presented itself to go on line and order up some new sheets, and really we had a winner quite quickly out of the gate – a subdued retro pattern featuring characters from Pixar’s Cars, which is a movie Z loves far out of proportion to any other movie, television program, or food product. Cars is basically the best thing in the world to him, and there’s really no point arguing with him about it. It’s high quality stuff - beautifully drawn, well-voiced, with a story that’s mostly unobjectionable. Anyway, Z saw the “Race Car Sheets” at the first page of the first site we hit last night, and he consistently favored them over every other design he saw for as long as we could keep him in front of the computer.
So there we were, last night, with the boy totally jacked up about his new sheets, and we know it’s going to be another touch-and-go night with him in terms of getting him to sleep and getting him to stay in his own bed… of course, it’s been several weeks now that he’s been keeping us from a decent night’s our own selves…. so we placate the beast by ordering the Race Car Sheets, featuring numerous licensed characterizations courtesy of Pixar, Animators and World Copyright Belongering-to Corporation. What’s more, we bought the sheets from Walmart, a store I’m really pleased almost never to patronize for shrill political reasons we can discuss at another time if you really want to. But anyway, WalMart. We bought’em there. My pride taketh a hard fall onto its ass.
And furthermore, we demanded overnight shipping – beloved plaything of the impatient and overindulged. No, I can’t wait three to five goddamn days for my goddamn Cars TeeEmm Toddlersheets, I need them now, now I say and I’ll back it up with shipping charges so far in excess of the actual costs of manufacture that I can only hang my head in shame.
So there I go. I’ve ordered product-placement bedclothes for my child, from a store the existence of which deeply troubles me, to be delivered as rapidly as commercially possible. What I’ve learned from this is that sleep deprivation works. I’ve become the devil’s minion, and so far I think I’m okay with it.
