One of my dearest friends, Elizabeth, sent me an email today that got me thinking. Among other things, she wrote that, since I visited her new house several months ago, she had been inspired to make her bed every day, whereas before that, she almost never made her bed. She unaccountably credits me with the transformation. The obvious assumption one might get from this is that, on the occasion of my visit, I channeled Joan Crawford, Leona Helmsley, or some other anal-retentive sourpuss and did a white-glove inspection, but this could not be further from the truth. In fact, I cannot remember noticing whether or not her bed was made when I was there.

The interesting thing is that my boyfriend, Rob, also makes his bed every day, and when he sleeps at my house, he makes mine. This may seem uncharacteristic, as his crisply made-up bed is usually surrounded by piles of clothes, heaps of dusty electronics, or a strewn carpet of his laser-printed musical scores. Besides that, there are crumbs between the sheets, and I once found a lone M&M under his pillow . . . but this is easily explained if we accept my mysterious power to inspire (if not to compel) people to make their beds.

But here is where logic ends because it stands to reason that, given this power, I would make my own bed, and I do not; it is never made unless Rob does it. Further, one of my other dearest friends, Joe, not only does not make his bed, he somehow shares it with mounds of laundry, stacks of propped-open books, sedimentary layers of flatware from meals gone by, and his shaggy little dog. My powers are obviously either highly selective or not sufficient to cope with the indolent habits of myself and Joe.

Rob’s friend Jim said the last time he visited that, even if the rest of his life is a disaster, he makes his bed every day because it gives him the illusion of control over something. So (follow the deductive train of thought here) what I do is inspire (some) people to manifest authority over a small area of their life so they do not go mad when the rest of it overwhelms them or spins wildly out of control.

Not bad, but inspiring people to deposit hundreds of dollars into my bank account would help me sleep better at night.