The Duvet

     What's it supposed to be, anyway?  Two sheets sewn together with a comforter inside?  Why can't I just purchase a pretty comforter?  If I could find a comforter, that is!  The duvet has conquered the bedroom, and it's a scam.
     "Duvet" must be a French word, since it ends in "et," but who knows what it means?  The French have attractive ideas, but they don't usually work.  Like their tiny hotel rooms.
     Duvets look pretty till you have to wash them.  My friend has dogs that sleep on the bed.  Finally, she couldn't stand the smell of the duvet and put the cover in the tub to soak.  After wringing the water out, two of them had to carry the sopping, squirmy thing outside to drip-dry, while the dogs lapped up the water behind.
     Then came the ordeal of getting the comforter back inside the cover.  My friend was under the impression that a duvet is square (isn't it?), but she couldn't make it fit by stuffing.  So she started over, with the other end.  She ended up rolling on top of the bed, pushing the comforter down inside with her legs, until she and the comforter were rolled up like a pig-in-a-blanket.
     Charley and I have found during our travels that there is no such thing as an old-fashioned blanket on hotel beds in Europe.  Our choice is either to have chills during the night with just a sheet or to swelter with the duvet.  It doesn't take much for me to swelter, since Charley alleges I've been having hot flashes for twenty years.   In Europe, our nightly scenes are throw-it-off, pull-it-on, throw-it-off, pull-it-on.  Charley has become an opponent of duvets now, too.
     Same thing happened when we travelled to South Africa.  To my surprise, other couples began complaining!  The air-conditioning was on because of the daytime heat, but the duvet became a deterrent to pulling ourselves out of bed to track the animals at 6 a.m.  Couples in our age group couldn't get their money's worth, if they were doing the throw-it-off, pull-it-on routine through the night.  The blankets we requested never appeared.
     I have resisted the duvet scam for thirty years.  My old coverlets and bedspreads are threadbare, but if they ain't broke, I ain't fixin'.