I don't own many nice things, but a few years ago, I splurged and bought a set of designer label sheets for my bed. After years of sleeping on bargain grade sheets, those things were a revelation. Seriously, they were one of the few things I made sure to bring with me when I moved out here. Imagine my surprise, then, when I pulled down the blanket to go to bed last night and discovered two gigantic tears straight down the middle (one guess how those mysteriously appeared).

Now, I actually don't own another set of bedding (and I was honestly too tired to remake the bed even if I did), so I carefully slid under the ragged sheets and went to bed anyways. Well, morning found me in a mess, with various limbs protruding from the gaping holes at odd angles. To the accompaniment of a bleeting alarm, I struggled for a few minutes to extricate myself from sheets which were now only good for very large dusting rags.

I've had a few hours to recover from that experience, but I can't help but feel like I've lost a member of the family. Those things got me through college. Pest, I hope you're racked with guilt.

Ha. If anyone should be feeling guilty about the sleeping arrangements around here, it should be you. I have to sleep on the cold, hard, floor. So, who can blame me when I decided to see how the other half sleeps in nice, comfy sheets? I have to say, I was a bit disappointed. You'd think they'd make them a little sturdier.

I don't think they had people with large, razor-like claws in mind when they made them, Pest. Now, if you don't mind, I have to run down to the department store and get a new set (and a quick check of my funds predicts that I'm returning to the realm of bargain grade bedding).

So, now I've had a week to sleep on this, but I don't feel much better about it. My new sheets are just not up to snuff, despite the fact that they should be by mathematical standards.

I'll admit that I'm not an expert in the realm of household consumerism. I literally bought my last set of sheets just because they were the only ones in the color I wanted. Their added comfort was an unexpected bonus. However, in the intervening years, I happened to catch an enlightening expose on TV about thread counts. I would never again have to naively wonder which sets were more comfortable than others -- forget trial and error, the industry had a SYSTEM to insure accurate comparison, communicated in a simple number. Now, I mentally filed this information away for just such a day as last Thursday.

I entered that department store an enlightened consumer, not to be swayed by ambiguous adjectives and catchy call-outs on the package labels. Now, I knew that my old sheets were about a 200 thread count, so finding a replacement of equal or, unthinkably, better comfort was as simple as locating a higher number. My breath caught as I noticed a 400 thread count set being featured as the latest sale item -- my imagination boggled at the idea of sheets that offered (scientifically, mind you) twice the comfort of the set that defined the very meaning of comfort for me, and my wallet was smug about the prospect of snagging such a holy grail for a reduced price. It was a win-win situation. I walked out of the store in a state of supreme bliss.

One week later, I can now report that the whole thread count thing is a sham. At best, these new sheets are barely half the sheets my old sheets were. Numbers lie.

Wow, if we can't trust commercial packaging claims, what can we trust? It's a frightening world beyond these four walls.