Up sheet’s creek without a paddle

Back in the day when I was younger, I would wake up in the morning and, for the most part, look like I had gotten a good night’s sleep. Not the mornings in my early 20s when I was hungover, of course. Or the mornings in my 30s after being up all night with my kids. Or the mornings in my 40s after waiting up all night for my kids to come home. But I’m sure there was a time, at some point, in the morning, when I didn’t look like I’d been hit by an ice cream truck, dragged for a mile while the tinny music drowned out my screams, and then attacked by a pack of rabid badgers.

Actually, it was less like I’d been hit by a truck and more like I’d been driven over by one because there seemed to be tire tracks across my face every morning that wouldn’t go away until about lunchtime. My nightly tire tracks had become so prevalent that my husband started calling me, in the most lovingly way possible, “Bed Sheet Face.”

Of course, I had no control over what happened to my face when I slept. I’m naturally a devoted back sleeper, but in recent years I’ve had to switch to sleeping on my side because if I slept on my back I snored (another surprising joy of turning 50). And apparently, when I slept on my side, I engaged in a bout of extreme championship wrestling with my pillow all night trying to get comfortable, and usually, the pillow won. The next morning, I would have so many lines and crevices across my face that I looked like a longitudinal map. This was an interesting look for a globe. For a woman in her 50s ... not so much.

I understand that wrinkles, saggy knees, gray hairs, and chin hairs are all part of the aging process, and I am willing to let them all do as they may (except the chin hairs, of course). But this bedsheet face thing was not something I was going to take, er, lying down. When people start asking you if you got that long scar down your face from your days as a pirate, you know something needs to be done.

So, first I googled “bed sheet face.” I got nothing. There were plenty of articles about bed bugs, which, fortunately is not a problem I have. Then there was another one about how to get rid of bed sheet wrinkles. But they meant wrinkles on your sheets, not wrinkles on your face from the sheets. Then there were a few more essays about the challenge of making a bed. I would think that if you couldn’t figure out that the sheet with the elastic at the corners goes over the mattress, you have bigger problems than dealing with your bed making skills.

So, now I knew how to get rid of bed bugs, smooth out bed wrinkles, and make a bed, but I still had the dreaded bed sheet face dilemma.

Finally, I scrolled a little further and I found an article. Could it be that someone else out there suffered from the same sleep induced tire track face dilemma that I did? Was I not alone in my quest for a smooth face sleep experience? Eager to rid myself of this blight on my appearance, I clicked on the link for an article called, “How do I get rid of sheet wrinkles on my face?”

Their advice?

Sleep on your back. For more Lost in Suburbia, Follow Tracy on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LostinSuburbiaFanPage and Twitter @TracyBeckerman.