No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed.

The joke works by treating a minor household standard—making the bed—as if it were a life-or-death matter, then puncturing that inflated importance with a blunt, common-sense observation. Bombeck’s point is not literally about mortality but about priorities: an unmade bed is harmless, and the anxiety surrounding it is disproportionate. The line critiques the moral weight often attached to domestic “order,” suggesting that care, rest, and sanity matter more than appearances. In Bombeck’s broader comedic worldview, humor becomes a tool for resisting unrealistic ideals and reclaiming time and self-worth from endless, low-stakes chores.