A few times on these pages I have paid out on M for being a sookylala who has to take his pillow with him wherever he goes. Tonight he was reading [miaow] and came across one of these instances. He then confided that when he left home at the age of 17, he cut his favourite pillow in half so half of it could fit into his backpack and travel with him. he piggybacked it, so to speak. (I haven’t asked him whether he gave it a name, but I will save that for another time.) I, on the other hand, was brought up in a the harsh world of a British father who instructed us to roll up a jumper and deal with it. So M knows who to blame when I mock him. Ha! And speaking of all things pillow, I too have something pillowish to tell…

When we bought our stupendously expensive visco elastic mattress (our treat for two years of renovating and living somewhere that thought XXXX beer was actually a legitmate beverage and not something that you would only consume if it was the last alcoholic liquid left on earth) they threw in a stupendously expensive matching pillow.

“You have it B,” said M, with a loving thoughtfulness (that I now realise was pure self interest. He thought if I had a good pillow I would stop tossing and turning my was through every long, long night).

“Why, thank you M!” I said delightedly, “Don’t mind if I do.”

My head and neck were beautifully supported on my wonder-pillow for all of, oh, about six months. Then M had a sore neck and I took pity on him.

“You use my pillow M,” I offered lovingly. “You need it more than I do.”

“Why, thank you B!” he murmured, grabbing it, stuffing it under his right ear, and falling immediately into a deep visco elasticised sleep.

We lived a hobo life for a while - six weeks in the back of the van, a month or so at my dad’s place. Then we moved into the trailer and were reunited with the Mattress (who we refer to affectionately as ‘Visco’). It took a month or two for M to lose patience with my three hundred and sixty degree rolls during the night. Early last week he demanded that, as were a little bit fiscal, that we should BUY another stupendously expensive pillow and we would have one each. One free, and one bought. Of course, I am genetically programmed to economise - so I did not return to Harvey Norman, home of the Uber-Pillow. I went to my friend Ebay.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about the Australian Ebay - that wasn’t going to save me any bucks, I went to the US Ebay. Our primeminister would be proud. (Notice that I don’t grant him the honour of a capital letter.) I already get all my Paula skincare stuff through US Ebay - even with shipping it’s cheaper than buying it here.

So I hunted about and there is an abundance of Uber-Pillows on Ebay. I found a very amenable pillow-seller. He said he would post my pillow to Australia for about $24US. Eight days later it was sitting in Tooradin post office, $120 cheaper than if I’d gone to Harvey Norman. I love the Internet. And although the Uber-Pillow is expensive, I justify it thus:
1) - you spend one third of your life on it,
2) - it will not lose it’s wonder factor for at least 15 years or so, and, most importantly,
3) - it will give me a better sleep and stop me windmilling.