wow, lots of lovely help! for what it's worth, i'll let you know what the problem is: the mattress we got is actually two mattresses put together to make a 'queen' size. they are 'small singles' which measure 86cm across. so, together, that makes 172 cm, unless my math is wrong (always possible.) however, the standard queen sized sheets here in japan seems to be 160 cm. a difference of twelve centimeters. seems like a lot to me, and i don't want the fitted sheet to always be slipping off. i also don't want to buy a sheet that i'm not going to be able to use. at the moment, i'm just going to wait until the bed is here and measure it myself.

btw, using an online measurement converter, 172 cm is about 67.7 inches. like i said previously, jc penney doesn't show the dimensions of its sheets, but if anyone knows what the standard queen size back home is, it would be nice to know. (and maybe i should think about king sized sheets.)