Pillow Talk

As usual, the WSJ has scored again with an off-beat, entertaining A-Hed piece, this one on the size of pillows in Germany, and basically, pillows in general.

The headline and sub-headline proclaim:

German Pillows Are Oddly Huge,
Many Say. Reasons Are Squishy.

Giant cushions that puzzle visitors trace
to Roman times, according to one theory

Apparently, German pillows are 80 centimeters square, translating to 31 x 31 inches. (That's very nearly a square yard. And it's beveled!). American pillows are 20" x 26." That's quite a difference. Do Germans sleep with helmets on? Not really.

I always knew we had a standard size pillow; one for queen, full size and twin beds, another larger one for king size beds. My wife, for some reasons will tell you she loves her pillow from Mike Lindell's Mypillow.com company.

Since my wife has no trouble falling asleep, I don't understand why she thinks Mike's pillow is a so great. Whenever there's a reason for me to make the bed (she always remakes it) I plump up her pillow and put one of those bed spread pillows covers over it, as I do to my regular, quite enjoyable pillow.

Mike's pillow always feels like a pillow case stuffed with rags. How anyone can claim they get a good might's sleep on it is beyond me. Unless of course you're my wife who is asleep before she hits the pillow. So how would she know anyway?

The A-Hed piece tells us visitors to Germany are puzzled by their size. "Giant marshmallows" goes one opinion, claiming they offer little support for the head and neck, no matter how much they're fluffed.

It's a lively piece, tracing pillow origins and size to a 1792 guide to what to have in a proper dowry, to claiming that German tribes adopted the preference for the pillow size from the Romans throughout the age of the Holy Roman Empire, the Medieval Age and the Renaissance.  Who knew the pillow had such a history?

But it was the close to the story that grabbed my attention. Not all that long ago when I checked into my hotel room while attending a conference, I found myself amused that there were like eight pillows of different sizes on the bed.  Sue, it looked nice, but hardly practical. There was only one of me.

When I got to the cocktail hour I asked anyone who could hear me if anyone needed an extra pillow for their bed, since I had seven too many. I then commented that there are probably kids in South American sleeping on soccer balls since we've cornered the market on pillow excess.

One of our sofas at home is decorated with pillows of three sizes, and colors, arranged in a symmetrical pattern that always requires anyone who wants to sit down to have to stack the pillows elsewhere. 

When my wife is finished making our bed (she does do a superior job to my efforts, but so what?) there are several pillows stacked next to the duvet covered sleeping pillows, and an array of stuffed animals, and a doll. I will say, the bed does look good. I blame Martha Stewart and all those style mavens that show up on morning talk shows that appeal to women. 

As we might he shaking our heads at the size of German pillows, Germans are shaking their heads at how many we put on a bed. The A-Hed piece closes with:

"It's pillow preferences that baffle Germans." Torsten Lapp, a Berlin-based cameraman comments about the U.S., where he spends a lot of time, "They have something like 30 pillows on a bed. Why do they force you to remove 29 each night before you can go to sleep."

Torsten, I'm with you.

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