This a rough estimate, but I believe I’ve spent two-thirds of the pandemic underneath a fleece blanket. When I’m done working for the day and I sink down into my beloved recliner, I always drape myself in fleecy luxury to complete the slugabed onboarding process. Whenever I nap, my hood is up and that same fleece blanket is tucked under my body. I am swaddled. I am a burrito.
And at night, when I nestle in under the comforter, I now have a blanket on top of the comforter.
This is an evolution in my bedding practices. When I was a kid, I had a top sheet, a blanket, and a bedspread. Fucking horrible setup. By college, I had graduated to a comforter, only without any duvet cover to protect it from dust, and grime, and sweat, and cum stains. Then I graduated and got married and duvet covers became a functional part of my sleeping existence. I am not self-conscious about this. This isn’t Fight Club. It’s 2021. You can know what a duvet cover is now if you’re a guy. That’s normal shit.
But I digress. For the past two decades, I’ve slept under a covered duvet in my undies and been happy with it. In that timespan, my wife has constantly asked me if I’m cold in the winter with just undies and a comforter. And I’ve always told her no, because my internal body temperature is ONE MILLION DEGREES. I get heat stroke just opening a paint can. I used to be able to slip under the covers, feel a little bit of that first-moments-in-bed chill, and then let my boiling blood adjust the dutch oven’s interior climate on my behalf.
But I’m getting colder now with age. I was always destined to turn into my grandma at some point, and now the transition has begun in earnest. My wife always sleeps with a blanket over the comforter in winter. I always refused her when she offered to cover me with it. I’M A FUCKING MAN, BABY. I DON’T NEED NO EXTRA BLANKET. ALL I NEED TO SURVIVE IS A PROPER DUVET WITH A DENSE THREAD COUNT GRRRRR.
This year though, I said FUCK IT and did it LIVE. And now I sleep like a fucking bear.
I’m probably far behind the rest of the country in this discovery, which makes this post dated and useless. But in case ONE of you is even further removed from the zeitgeist, hear me out: try the blanket on top of the comforter. It’s lovely, and it basically does the weighted blanket thing without you having to actually buy a weighted blanket. All day and night I am ensconced fleecy goodness. There’s no going back now. I know we have vaccines but I don’t really need one anymore. I’m content to stay here, under a shepherd’s pie of soft bedding, and remain cozy until the rest of the world un-fucks itself two decades from now. It’s a long wait but it won’t be a cold one.
