Between the Sheets... Or Lack Thereof...

Over the years, we've spent a fair many nights in Marab beds, sometimes for innocent reasons...

One peculiar thing we've noticed is that none of these beds ever seem to have sheets on them. Insofar as our research as been conducted, we have yet to determine whether this is a semi-cultural thing or just a general, lazy-single-male-(probably college student)-thing. We've slept in beds in Middle Eastern countries that do, indeed, have sheets on them, so we're fairly certain that the bed sheet is not a predominantly western phenomenon, which hasn't caught on in the East.

Not one of us has ventured to ask a Marab why Marabs don't use sheets. We don't have a good excuse for this, as each of us has had multiple opportunities to bring up the subject. However, it just seems like one of those small questions that by the very act of asking it, may turn into an argument about the what one is implying about Marab culture. Trust us, sometimes one thinks she is asking a simple question, and finds out that the implications of asking said question far outweigh, negatively, the importance of the answer.

Bidoon sheets (without sheets) these Marab beds do seem to have one thing in common -the fuzzy blanket. For some inexplicable reason, the majority of Marabs we've encountered put those fuzzy, synthetic blankets directly over the mattress, and sleep on top of them. Now, this may sound reasonable, in theory, (who doesn't love a fuzzy blanket bearing the image of a tiger?); however, these blankets, being mostly made of synthetic (a.k.a. plastic) materials, lead to a less-than-pleasant night of sleep. Sleeping on top of plastic makes the body sweat at a time when it is already working to detoxify and replenish itself, and worse, it doesn't breathe... like, say, a bed sheet, so the sweat just sort of pools. That is to say, if all you are doing is SLEEPING in the bed; needless to say, other activities produce more perspiration. Furthermore, while the fuzzy blanket seems soft and wonderful when it is on top of a person, it starts to seem scratchy and synthetic when underneath the person.

While we make no claim that sleeping on a synthetic blanket is culturally a Marab thing, we have noticed this so often that it has led to many a series of interesting text conversations. For example, one of us may travel out of town to visit some Marab friends, and due to the fact that Marabs consistently run on a much different time schedule than Americans (i.e. "Saudi Time" "Kuwaiti Time" "Lebanese Time" etc..) she may find herself too tired to drive back home, after staying up until 6 in the morning on whatever Marab time zone she is visiting. Therefore, she will text one of her girlfriends to let her know that she will be staying over. This generally comes after a series of text updates on the night's events, after which, the recipient is never surprised to learn that her friend is not coming home. The next five to ten text messages usually concern sheets, and waging bets on what image the fuzzy blanket will bear... it sounds crazy, and it probably is, but it has become a sort of inside joke with us.

So, just a warning to all those girls out there who expect to find 1,200 count Egyptian cotton sheets in your Egyptian man's bed -you'll be lucky to find sheets at all!