My grandfather was fun and witty. He was great with kids and philosophical in an entertaining way. He had two sayings that I remember. The first was one that is in the idiom dictionary: “Life is a bowl of cherries.” I don’t think I ever heard him say it; my mother used to quote him to us. “What does that mean?” I asked. “I think it’s meant to mean that life is fun and easy,” she replied, “but it’s wrong.”

The second one I did often hear him say, mostly for entertainment purposes as it had become a family joke, was: “When the sheets are short, the bed seems longer.”

That one is not in the idiom dictionary.  We kind of knew what it meant – perspective, etc – and it was enigmatic and nonsensical enough to stick.

Life is not always a bowl of cherries, but it is always the case that when the sheets are short, the bed seems longer.