Found nested in linen closets in a state of barely contained rebellion, the fitted sheet distinguishes itself from its flat cousin by four reinforced corners, each fitted with elastic banding designed to grip a mattress and, by extension, the will of whoever attempts to store it. Where the flat sheet lies down in obedient rectangles, this one billows, resists, and finally submits to being wadded into a lump that passes, informally, for folded.
Field observers have documented the so called hotel fold, a sequence of corner tucking said to produce a neat square. In practice this technique is performed successfully by perhaps one household in twenty, and even then only once, as a kind of party trick never repeated. The rest of us store our fitted sheets as soft, shapeless bundles, indistinguishable from one another until unfurled at bedtime, at which point the elastic corner nearest the pillow will invariably be found at the foot. This is not malfunction. This is simply what the fitted sheet is: a garment for a mattress that never quite fits, made by people who have never seen you fold laundry, folded by you in the dark, alone, defeated, at eleven at night.