Are you a stripper or a maker?

When I stay in someone's home and it's time to leave, I always ask: "Are you a stripper or a maker?" I'm referring to how they want me to handle the sheets: should I strip the sheets and put them in the laundry room? Or should I make the bed?

This debate is as intense, but not as split down the middle, as soggers v. crunchers.

I'd say eight times out of ten, they're strippers. Most people prefer that you take all the sheets and pillow cases off the bed so that they can wash them that day and then put them back on the bed for the next guests.

I happily strip if that's what my host requests but I myself am a maker. Here is my case for the makers:

1. If someone strips the bed, it's like, "Okay, so I guess I'm doing laundry today."
2. Or worse, if I don't get around to doing the sheets that day, I've got piles of them sitting in my laundry room.
3. I'm not sure I want guests seeing what my pillows and mattress actually look like sans covers.
4. A few days before guests arrive I wash the sheets and put them back on the bed. Then the sheets smell very fresh!

Since it was Thanksgiving last week I took a poll and as I suspected, the strippers were the majority. Here was their case:

1. They like guests to strip the bed so they can get the sheets-washing over with. Then they don't have to wonder whether the sheets are dirty or clean on the guest bed when the next guests arrive.
2. They don't really like the idea of making up a bed with dirty sheets on it.
3. When it comes time to prep for guests, they want to focus on other things like meal planning, rather than changing sheets.

Those are all valid points but as you can see, we makers have four reasons while the strippers have only three.  And the fresh smell of clean sheets should really count twice.

Now, whether you're a stripper or a maker we all have the potential to encounter another obstacle in this sheet situation: the destroyer. My sister-in-law dubbed her husband this when I was quizzing her about strippers v. makers. She said he sometimes goes to sleep in the guest bed on the clean sheets and then she has to wash them all over again!

My husband and I can both be destroyers. However, since I'm a maker it really isn't as detrimental. I mean, then we're the ones sleeping on the dirty sheets and that doesn't really bother me (unless the last person who slept in our guest bed was a drifter who we took pity on or something). If I were a stripper and my husband said he wanted to sleep in the guest room because I was coughing too much, I would say, "NOOOO! I have clean sheets on that bed! Just go sleep on the couch!"

And while I completely am in favor of changing sheets in between guests, is it really fair to call the sheets "dirty?" Even if someone sleeps in them one night, hosts go crazy fumigating them as if their guests have leprosy or bed bugs or swine flu. (Is that thing still around, btw?) Think about it: guests and other randoms sit on your couch all the time and when's the last time you cleaned that?

Having said that, I do want to assure you (in case you plan to stay with me), that I do participate in the tradition of changing sheets prior to guests sleeping in them. I just maintain my status as a proud maker. This holiday season my wish is that strippers and makers can put aside their differences and understand that BOTH ways have merit and both yield the same end result--clean sheets for loved ones. (It's just that one of the ways makes SO much more sense.)