Does anyone remember those beautiful lies they told us half a century ago now? Clotheslines are for the birds, they said. (Dryers) We’re heading into a paperless society, they said. (Computers) You’ll never make a bed again, they said. (Duvets) Well, all I can say is hah, hah and hah. Because now, before the rosy predictions have faded, we have to take the clotheslines back for the sake of the planet. We’re taking the acid out of paper so it will keep longer. and we’re piling on the pillows, I’m not sure why, but they add to the bed-making time.
It was too easy, wasn’t it? Never mind how long it takes to stuff a duvet into a duvet cover, at least that doesn’t happen every day. When you’re not stuffing you make your bed with a flick of the wrist—well, two net flicks if it’s king-size—and presto! The bed is made. But some creative, fancy-llint-picking interior decorator thought the bed looked too stark with only a puffy, pretty duvet on it, so they picked up extra pillows to fluff it up, dress the bed, as it were, and-maybe-to prop up a reader or a sick-a-bed with cloud-like comfort. I must admit it’s pretty luxurious to be ensconced in a cloud fortress, like the ones my brother and I used to build with sofa cushions.
Far from the madding crowd is the expression that comes to mind, with the illustration: a nose and two eyes gazing out from a wall of down. Reminds me of the trick question: “How do you get down off an elephant?” Answer: “You don’t get down off an elephant, you get down off a duck.” Not these days, of course: you get goose down, polyester if you’re allergic.
So with the pillows: foam, feathers, more often just stuff, whatever it is that stuffing is made of. Stuff: clumpy cotton, aromatic grasses (lavender is supposed to be a soporific, a mood-lifter and a healer. Whatever it is, it’s 100% new material according to the label attached, so firmly attached you have to rip open a seam to get it off, or leave it until the only new thing about the now-lumpy pillow is that indestructible label.
I don’t ever remember such a plethora of pillows, even when I had my appendix out. Every store has them, not just the scented-candle gift stores, and of course furniture stores but every discount and dollar store has a stash of pillows for sale, to sell. They’re not all that inexpensive. If the decorator has their way you multiply the price by five or six depending on the width of the bed and the coordinated colour scheme they are working out. I have eight on my bed and I sleep alone.
Ay, there’s the rub. What do I do with those pillows when I go to bed to sleep, perchance to dream, that is, not to read or sip chamomile tea or indulge in aroma therapy? I like to lay my head on one old flat goose down pillows I’ve had for years and I simply don’t think about the mites. We’ve both developed immunity by this time. (FLASH! I bought two new goose downs when I bought my new mattress. It was time.)
So what do I do with the rest of the pillows? I hate to put them on the floor; you don’t know who’s been walking on it. If I pile them on a bedside chair, I don’t feel like building a fortress every night so I toss them carelessly and they tumble off. Not good. What I did was pile them on one side of the bed leaving room for me to sleep on the other side of the bed, providing me with about the same space as a baby’s crib. Latterly, keeping in mind the purpose of a backwash of pillows, I arrange the unused ones in a reader’s position on the bed--a neat accumulation of props ready for a midnight (more like 3 a.m. ) ramble in a book or my diary. This is good, in some ways. I’m using my pillows. I’m getting a lot done. But I’m not getting enough sleep.
Sleep is for the birds.