Bed Pillows – what a strange thing

Have you ever had a bed pillow that you were in love with? Have you ever had one that was like the fabulous ones at that fancy hotel? I ask, why not? Pillows fall into the category of appliances in some regards for me. You gotta have them , but you hate spending any money on them.

It has been a while since I have had what I consider a great pillow, if pillows can even be great. When you are in the store you look, you squeeze and you think, is this too firm, is this too soft and even, how much of a pain in the ass is this going to be to get into my pillow cases. I have purchased pillows at mattress stores, upscale retail stores, high end bedding stores and even once from Wal-Mart and once from Costco. Although I am not proud to admit it, in my younger days I have even stolen one from a hotel that I thought was great – for the one night I slept on it, it turned out to suck after a couple of days.

Pillows are fickle things, somewhat like mattresses in that regard. It is impossible to “know” ya got the right one with the few minutes you spent with them in the store. I mean, laying on the mattress at the “Mattress Firm” for a few minutes with all your clothes on and with folks staring at ya is not a good way to judge if a mattress is going to the be the one that goes the distance with you. It takes time to become acquainted with it and it with you. The relationship has to start out slow, kinda like when one was first dating their spouse. You don’t want to just jump in and ask her to marry you after the first date, you have a set of criteria you are using to ensure that she will be the one who will last, the one who will someday be helping you pick out, say a mattress or a pillow. Now a days I see that they will let you use the mattress for up to 90 days to make sure you like it. Not sure how that works but I bet it is a HUGE pain in the ass to return that mattress after those 90 days. If you have done that tell of your experience with that.

On the mattress side we are set, when Bride had back surgery the doctor told us to buy the absolute best mattress we could afford and at the time that ended up being a very expensive Stearns and Foster king size bed. Although now I see that the marketing folks have whipped up some hysteria about mattresses in what is nothing more than an attempt to get us to buy a new one – that is NOT happening. Seems that now we are to believe that after just 8 years our mattress needs to be replaced, yep – we are told the mattress will double in weight from dust mites and bed bugs and the like. It matters little that you bought a mattress with a 10 year warrantee, 8 years and out to the curb with it. Double in weight my ass! What a way to bilk us of our money! I am not sure how long a mattress is supposed to last but I feel that it is more than 8 years. There are a few reasons, one, I know for a fact that my mattress has not doubled in weight in the 11 years we have owned it. I could barely move ours 11 years ago and if it had doubled in weight I would not be able to move it now, I am 11 years older and more feeble as well. Also that bed seems to me every bit as comfortable as it did when we bought it, keep the mattress flipped and you can go some time, of that I am sure. It is a marketing ploy folks plain and simple.

Anyway, back to pillows, I wish they had the 90 day trial thing too, wouldn’t that be nice? I recently bought a Serta memory foam contour pillow, I am on my third night and am still in the evaluation mode. I think I am liking it. The pillow I replaced was slap wore out though so anything would have been an improvement over that piece of crap. It is shaped like a trough, high on both top and bottom with a kind of valley in the middle, it seemed strangely shaped to me but I was desperate for some relief.

I wonder if I look that good when I am sleeping on that pillow. I suspect that I am more of a mouth open, snoring and drooling all over the place but I am going to continue to believe I look as contented as she does.

I got it at Sam’s for less than 20 bucks. I was unsure at first, would it be as comfortable if I was laying on my stomach as it would be if I were laying on my side or back? I am going to give myself a week, at least, before I pass judgment though. Bride is looking for a new pillow as well so when I am done she is going to try it to see if she likes it before we buy another. We have burned through a number of pillows that we did not like so now we buy one, evaluate and then get the other one. I remember once going through 6 pillows that we bought and used before we realized we did not like them. The folks at the SPCA thrift shop looked at us like we were nuts when we dropped off six pillows that appeared to still be brand new, it makes me laugh remembering that.  I even asked my friends on Facbook with no difinitive answer there either, seems we all suffer with this issue.

So what brand of pillow are you using and do you like it or not like it?