Pillow Talk

 

Pillow Talk Round 8 (Photo credit: threedancingmagpies)

You must be sick of my headaches; I know I am.  I looked back over old posts because I have a headache today and I thought I’d re-post instead of thinking around the sore spots to come up with original material but, you know what?  I complain a lot about headaches: I get migraines and stress heads and neck tension and shooting pains and the occasional bump when my head is in the figurative clouds but the actual world.

Today’s headache is a new one that started two days ago.  It is caused by my old pillow, which is now too flat for comfort.  I’ve tried swapping with the many we have in the cupboard but they are too high or too hard or too lumpy.    That’s probably why they are in the cupboard.  I tried using the old pillow and a feather pillow, thinking I’d get some height from the flat pillow and I could shape the feather pillow to suit.  Result: thumping headache from the neck up.

I have a long history with pillows.  As a child, I sometimes slept in my parents’ bed.  I would take their four pillows and build a little wall around and over my head.  Mum and Dad always found me.  I never figured out how.

More than once in my sleep, I have yanked  the Hub’s pillow out from under him and thrown it across the room, frightening the life out of him.  I can only assume that I want to keep him on his toes even when he’s unconscious.

Pillow Fight Day NYC 2010 8 (Photo credit: david_shankbone)

Before we replaced our mattress, I slept with a feather pillow for support, otherwise I woke up in a foetal position with back ache, having rolled into the sagging centre of the bed.  

I have a habit of taking up the middle ground in my sleep.  One night the Hub came to bed to find me occupying three-quarters of it, but he gamely tried to get in.  I must have stirred like a dog guarding a bone because he touched my pillow and I distinctly recall the malice with which I snatched my pillow to me and flung myself over onto my other side.  Semi-conscious, I remember lying there needing to go to the toilet but not getting up because I wasn’t letting him get his hands on my pillow.  I can recall how aggressive I felt: poor darling, he could feel it radiating from me.  After what felt like an hour of my bladder impersonating a leaky dam, I suddenly had the answer; it was obvious: I took my pillow to the bathroom with me.  I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it earlier.

I don’t remember getting back into bed but the Hub tells me he couldn’t sleep because he was shaking with laugher.  He says that at one point I turned over in my sleep but left my pillow there and clasped it to my back with my arm uncomfortably behind me.   Conscious or not, my husband wasn’t getting hold of my pillow.  He won’t want it now, anyway: it’s covered in toilet germs.

Here are some pillow facts from All Night Pillows to help you sleep:

• 99% of people use a pillow to sleep on, yet 70% of people don’t like their pillow.
• Most people derive 80% of their sleeping comfort simply by having their necks well supported all night long.
• Half of women over 30 years old suffer from morning headaches and/or stiff sore necks.

Okay, the people at All Night Pillows are clearly spying on me.  Let’s see what the LA Times has to say about pillows:

• The concept of the bed pillow is believed to date back to prehistoric times, when a pillow used to be simply a stone, a piece of wood or bundled grass.  I might try that; it can’t be worse than my current pillow.
• The first pillow was best described by Confucius five centuries before the birth of Christ: “With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow–I have still joy in the midst of these things.”  That Confucius – what a riot he must have been at a sleepover.
• Early Hollywood filmmakers used pillow fights on screen to stir emotions. The amount of feathers pounded from the casings depicted the degree of conflict.  Hmm.  With that rule, I should be spending half my income on pillows.  Might be cheaper to hire a hit man; at least I’d have the bed to myself.

I will leave you with this parting thought – as odd as you may upon occasion find me; as whiny as I may be about pillows and headaches and husbands; at least I’m not like this guy:

From the Metro:

True love can take many forms. In this case, it has taken the form of a Korean man falling in love with, and eventually marrying, a large pillow with a picture of a woman on it. 

I have to admit, I can see the attraction: bump off that spouse and the only ones to complain are the ducks providing the filling for your next one.  If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it must be a comfy pillow.