Avian dinner date

Do you have a special pillow?

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of people in this world.  Those who have a favorite pillow and cannot sleep unless they have it, and those who can sleep on anything that even remotely resembles a pillow.  I am one of the former.

Whenever I travel, I have to pack my pillow.  Granted, it takes up valuable suitcase space, but hotel pillows just don’t cut it.  It’s bad enough I have to sleep in an unfamiliar bed, but without my special pillow, I wouldn’t sleep at all.  I mean seriously, some pillows are too fat; some too flat but my pillow it just right.  It took me a long time to get that perfect balance of softness and squishiness.  I had to go through two crushed foam pillows, one fiber filled one and a memory foam pillow that was so heavy I could have killed someone had I the desire to engage in a pillow fight!

Now my husband can sleep on any old pillow and he just doesn’t get my pillow fixation. When I make the bed each day I am careful to place each of our pillows on the proper side, but every once in a while I make a mistake.  Since he goes to bed earlier than I do, if this happens I freak out as I watch him peacefully slumber on my special pillow.  What comes next is the planning phase.  I have to figure out a way to remove the pillow from under his head without waking him.  Although the man can sleep through a hurricane (and he has) this is no easy feat.

I pull on one end of the pillow.  He grunts and lets out a tiny snore.  I pull a little more and part of his head flops down.  His eyelids flutter but he returns his head to its lopsided position.  I realize there is no way to do this slowly and try the band-aid removal method.  You know the drill; just whip it off really quick.  So I yank it fast and his head bounces on the mattress, but I quickly move the pillow to my side of the bed.  He sits bolt upright looking at me.  Thinking fast, I tell him that he must have been having a bad dream and threw his pillow to the foot of the bed where I placed it. (The man swears he rarely dreams) In his semi conscious state, he looks at me and takes his pillow and continues his nightly snore fest.  I hug my special pillow tightly and swear I will not make this mistake again, and drift off to my dreams, which now that I have my pillow-- are sweet.

My question to you is this…Do you have a special pillow?