Growing up I was an only child and because my mother worked a latchkey kid. I was taught to make my bed with red cross or hospital corners and expected to do so daily. When I got into the army I ended up teaching my fellow GI’s the technique.
After the Army in resumed my education at an Eastern elite all male college. I was making my bed as always in my new dorm room when a contingent of my new neighbors arrived to greet me. They were very friendly and given the slight age difference I became a minor father confessor. They would divulge all sorts of sins but never were drugs mentioned. Only later did I learn that my hospital corners and short hair led them to assume that I was an undercover narc. Interestingly only one, a very talented artist, was a user. Sadly he fried his brain the next semester.
One fortunate outcome from my mother’s professional career was her dispensing with some of the niceties of her Ewardian upbringing like linen napkins and ironed sheets. Thankfully.