Rusty Saber: Fitted sheets simplify tasks, cause folding fits

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.

Random Rusty Saber reflections

We human beings are surrounded by a dazzling array of high-tech marvels that past generations could not have imagined. Its not surprising that our collective egos lead us to believe we are masters of all we survey.

We may have a certain mastery of technology, but few have yet to conquer a bewildering task: neatly folding fitted sheets. I maintain that God gave us fitted sheets as a reminder that there are some things we cannot do. The invention of fitted sheets certainly simplified the art of bed making. Figure out how to get all four ends of the gizmo firmly secured onto the corners of the mattress and the rest is all downhill.

Truth be told, the only way to overcome the curse of folding fitted sheets is to have only one wash it and put it back on the mattress. To have more means folding the ones not on the bed. If fitted sheets existed in Sherlock Holmes day, he would have launched the process of the frantic fitted folding folly with his signature declaration, The games afoot!

Pillowcases and regular sheets are a snap to fold. Some may claim to know how to fold fitted sheets into equally orderly stacks. I dont believe it! They claim they simply tuck and fold the pliable elastic rounded ends into each other, you know, sort of like square pegs in round holes. The end result is supposed to be a sheet folded as tidy as a regular one. Of course it is, and Ill win the lottery just as soon as I buy a ticket.

Each time I face the folding process, I vow that Ill not be outsmarted by a big hunk of cloth. Alas, the finished product is not neatly folded, rather a wadded-up mess, flattened and crammed in along neatly folded sheets and pillowcases.

Smoking and babies

Some members of the Springfield City Council may wish they had never taken up the smoking issue. City Council is in a spot similar to the judges of a beautiful baby contest. I wouldnt want to be in the position of telling the mothers of the losing contestants that a particular baby was prettier and more adorable than theirs.

Some people want the bill to go to the extreme of allowing smoking in all public places; others favor outlawing the smoking of cigarettes anywhere within the city limits; everyone else is somewhere between these extremes. A lot of people are going to be unhappy because, in their opinion, the ordinance will have gone either too far or not far enough.

Like the beautiful baby judges, council members will catch flack from all sides. I guess catching flack goes with the territory of being in public service. Luckily, there are good people willing to take the heat and serve.

Baseball

For one brief and shining moment it seemed that the unthinkable was about to happen. The Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, two Major League baseball teams long burdened with the ominous label loser, were on the threshold of meeting in the World Series. Both needed only to win their last games in the playoffs to meet in the World Series.

The Cubs needed to win one game from the Florida Marlins to make it to the World Series, a place they have not been since 1945; naturally, they lost then, too.

The Boston Red Sox, noted for making it to the World Series but finding ways to lose once there, needed to win one game against their rivals, the New York Yankees. As the Yankees and Marlins played in the Series; others were left to ponder what might have been.

Movies

Conventional wisdom has it that Hollywoods best movies come out late in the year in order to attract Academy Awards nominations. This must be true.

As I write this, it is late in the year; a remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the top box office attraction. Enough said.