One good turn takes the whole blanket

One good turn will take the whole blanket.
At least that’s what my friend, Norm, told me—and my wife, the Pearl of the Orient, has been consistently proving over the last 42 years.
This past winter week at the condo in Florida, things came to a head.
For more than 40 years, the Pearl and I have been sharing the same covers—except for the odd night on the sofa. It has been a successful, if uneasy, partnership.
The Pearl insists on a well-made bed, hospital corners all neat, tidy, and well tucked in. With my extensive frame, however, I grew up with my feet sticking out the bottom of the bed and simply can’t relax unless I can get them out the bottom.
Even at moose camp, I have to unzip the sleeping bag so I can air my tootsies in the fresh, if sometimes frigid, air.
Having the covers un-tucked also removes the remote chance (in my case, the probability) of accidentally gassing oneself.
The truce broke into open warfare one night at the condo. The duvet and blankets there, you see, are slippery and on a few particularly nippy evenings lately, the Pearl would, by 2 a.m., wind up with the bulk of all the covers.
A few tosses and turns on her part, and she would have herself wound up like a mummy. I simply nursed goose bumps, and the tidbit of sheet I managed to claw back simply wasn’t doing the job.
Sleep interrupted is not a good thing.
In desperation, I gripped the edge of the bedding and, spinning like a crocodile ripping apart a wildebeest, wrapped myself in a couple of layers.
The Pearl’s cocoon unrolled, propelling her across the bed until she bumped up against my corpse. But instead of the languorous smile that would have signalled such a midnight rendez-vous a few decades earlier, the sleepy-eyed utterance was, “What?”
“You took all the covers!” I complained, now securely anchored to my share of the duvet.
“I did not! You threw all of them on my side of the bed because you were too hot,” came the angry retort of the Pearl.
A lively debate ensued, accompanied by a good deal of tugging and pulling that ended with the bed in total disarray and the lady in the apartment below banging on the ceiling.
On succeeding evenings, I made pre-emptive strikes by anchoring my feet, wrapping them in the sheet, blanket, and duvet. I also spread the extra blanket on my side as emergency back-up.
By 1:30 a.m., I was roasting so I just tossed the covers over onto the Pearl. She might be chilly, I reasoned.