They say that getting enough sleep is necessary for being healthy and for losing weight.  I guess that could be true since, if you stay up late at night, you’re going to hit the munchies at some point.  And those munchies are never going to be for things like, say, apples or red peppers.  It will be more like BROWNIES and a heaping helping of lasagna!!!

So my question is, how can anyone get good sleep if they can’t find a perfect pillow??

Years ago – long before the dawn of time – my dad threw out two pillows.  They were very old; only dad knows how old they were. I discovered them in the “to go outside” pile and confiscated them.  They were the PERFECT pillows. This was sometime in the 70’s and I loved those pillows. They were some form of foam that wasn’t too hard or too soft, unlike the ones today. Just like Goldilocks, they were JUST RIGHT.

As time went by, I had to recover them a few times but I made sure no matter where I moved to, I had my perfect pillows. They went to college with me. They went into the Air Force with me. They went everywhere! They were the ONLY two I ever needed.

Needless to say, my perfect pillows finally wore out – or should I say, crumbled and disintegrated. Shoot, I’d say they were probably 25-30 years old by this time. It was time for the ultimate new perfect pillow search.

Starting in the mid-1990’s, I began this search. I slept on some so-so ones while searching. I tried foam rectangles, foam balls, foam substitute, foam mock, faux foam, hard foam, soft foam, creepy foam – bleh. I tried stacking pillows on top of one another. I tried memory foam – too soft or too hard. I don’t know who’s memory they were trying to keep, but it sure wasn’t mine!

I tried down, down and feather, down alternative, double down, down and polyester combo, circle of down, and the down of doom. OK, maybe not that last one, but it began to seem that way. I would start out thinking, “This is a GREAT pillow” and within a month, the pillow would either be too hard or so soft it was like sleeping straight on the mattress.

It got so bad my husband began to notice there were pillows all over the place. Oh, it wasn’t as bad as he whined.  No, Alpha’s don’t whine.  Umm, as he huffed.  There were several trial and error pillows for awhile there. Every time a new pillow entered the house, I’d hear this groan and, “Just how many pillows are you going to buy?”  This is coming from a man who was still using one of the two pillows he brought into our marriage – and it was old and discolored way back then – 15 years ago.  He JUST gave it up for one of the many extras. What does he know about perfect pillows?

Then it happened! I wandered into a TJ Maxx store and saw this weird pillow, a gel fiber pillow. Gel fibers? Microdenier Gel Polyester Fiberfill. I poked it and it felt like down yet fluffed right back up. I looked around to see if anyone was looking then sort of tried to lay my head on it to test it – it felt pretty good. Of course after all the pillows I’ve been through in the past 10 years or so, I wasn’t that optimistic. I bought one and brought it home. After a week, I knew! THIS WAS IT. I had finally found the perfect combination of soft, fluffy, and cushiony. I was in hog heaven!! I was kicking myself for not buying the other two. It had been a long hunt – but by golly, I found the perfect pillow.

Until about a month later – oh my gosh – all those nice little gel fibers began to flatten. Then they began to congregate in one spot so you had to pound the heck out of the pillow. It began having flat spots so my head was straight on the mattress. Neck cricks.

I am heartbroken – and out of the bucks again. Is there to be NO perfect rest? I am unpillowed. Except for the 5,125 pillows stuffed in my extra bedroom.