“You need better pillows,” my boyfriend announced out of the clear blue last weekend. “Where can we go to get some?”
“Um…there’s a Marshall’s about ten minutes away,” I said, to humor him. My pillows, in my not so humble opinion, were just fine, thankyouverymuch.
“Not good enough,” he said. “Where’s the nearest Macy’s?”
I was still wrapping my head around the fact that we were suddenly in the midst of a Serious Pillow Emergency. “Macy’s?” (I can’t remember the last time I was in a Macy’s unless I was walking through it to get to the Forever XXI with Allyson.) “Well, there’s one in the mall.”
“Let’s go.”
“Wait. Wha…? Now?”
“Yes! We’ll see that 7:00 showing of American Sniper after we get you some decent pillows.”
Head still spinning from the Urgency of the Situation, I grabbed my keys and off we went.
The pillows I had came from Marshall’s (I think; maybe it was TJ Maxx). I got them on clearance at the same time I bought many of the other Necessaries I needed for my new digs. They are soft. They are squishy. They are filled with synthetic something-or-other. They look lovely covered in the soft blue clearance rack pillowcases I bought.
Clik here to view.
“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” -Henry Ford
My boyfriend was not impressed: “These pillows suck.”
The tag no one can rip off ever under penalty of death or whatever said Ralph Lauren made them. Poor things: they were getting a bad rap, but my boyfriend was not swayed by squishiness or name-dropping. These things had to be upgraded. Stat.
We walked into the mall and smelled Cinnabon…however, even Cinnabon could not distract my Man on a Mission. We entered Macy’s and headed upstairs.
Note to readers: shopping for White-Sale type items in late January is fraught with peril. If possible, do such shopping the first week of January like the Savvy Shoppers do, or wait until Spring. These poor people are completely wiped from Christmas, After Christmas, and The Annual White Sale.
Clik here to view.
“Quality begins on the inside… then works its way out.” -Bob Moawad
We looked around what we assumed was the linens department. We saw no pillows, and much evidence of some sort of Cataclysmic Weather Event: the place was a mess. My boyfriend applied logic: “Excuse me, where are the pillows?” he asked a lady wearing a Macy’s nametag.
She seemed perplexed by the question. Silence. We waited with breathless anticipation. An answer came to her: “I don’t know.”
“Do you work in this department?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t know where the pillows are?”
“No.”
“Is there anyone else who works in this department who can help us?”
“No.”
Stunned, we set out on our Quest without direction or hope through the mess that remained of the Macy’s linen’s department. The holidays had been unkind: boxes and stuff were haphazardly placed everywhere. Signs were bent, torn, turned wrong, or in the wrong place altogether.
Clik here to view.
“Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.” -Henry Adams
We stumbled across a panini machine and my boyfriend said, “Ooh, this is on sale-you need a panini maker.”
Laughing, I replied, “No one ‘needs’ a panini maker, baby.” Men and their sandwiches…We moved on.
After what seemed like a geological age, we found the pillows. You wouldn’t believe the mess. The pillows were opened, boxes ripped and strewn willy-nilly all over the floor, and the price tags and sale signs were all in the wrong spots. Object that had no business being next to the pillows were cluttering up the area: irons, kitchen gadgets, rejected children’s clothing. I looked around like the first person to walk outside after the hurricane and thought, “State Farm ain’t never gonna believe this.”
Robert applied logic again. “Excuse me, ma’am, can you help us?” he asked another passing Helpful Macy’s Sales Associate thinking he’d get some help..
She made a valiant effort, really she did. She hauled out the latest sales ad (personally, I think it was more for her reference than for us), and indicated which pillows were The Best Deals. It only took her twenty minutes to find them in all that mess, which was impressive. We honed in on a Martha Stewart Memory Foam pillow that was regularly a gazillion dollars, but was on sale for a Ridiculously Low Price. Robert gushed: “This is It. This is The One! Feel this thing!” He shoved it under my shoulder, oohing and ahhing. The sales lady beamed. Standing there in the middle of the aisle with a high-tech foam pillow crammed under my chin, I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic. My boyfriend sensed this. He grabbed the pillow and took off for parts unknown.
“Come here,” I heard him say. I turned around, and lo and behold, my grown-ass man was lying across the fake bed displaying some hoity-toity comforter ensemble hugging that pillow like it was a long-lost relative. His face was the picture of absolute bliss.
I was mortified. “What are you doing?!”
“Lie down, babe. You’ve gotta try this.” He seemed oblivious to the fact that one does not typically lay lie across the displays in a department store. With cowboy boots on. He was so cute, though, I started laughing. “Come on! Lay down! You’re gonna love this thing!” he said.
“I am not lying down on that! It’s not even a real bed!” People were grinning and pointing in our general direction now. Did I mention this is the same mall I have shopped in since I was in high school? I prayed fervently to the Gods of Introversion for anonymity.
“Oh come on! Lie down! Just for a second! It’s so awesome!” I held firm. I am a Strong Woman. No man, no matter how completely adorable during a pillow shopping excursion, can make me lower my personal shopping etiquette policy. I have standards, dammit.
Then he looked at me with those blue eyes. “C’mon,” he whispered. “I want you to feel how great this is.” Dammit. Etiquette schmetiquette…my standards and my heart turned to mush. I laid down on the fake Macy’s bedding display in front of God and evver-body.
That foamy high tech pillow with the built in memory blew my soft squishy synthetic-stuff filled pillows away. I had what addicts refer to as a Moment of Clarity. I had seen the light: friends, my pillows did suck.
We grabbed two of them and headed to the check out. A well-dressed gentleman was in line dealing with the first sales person we encountered. He looked a bit frustrated: he was attempting to return something. I think he’d been attempting this seemingly easy task for awhile. We waited for about ten minutes behind him. I checked the time: it was 6:50. Bradley Cooper was waiting for me, and now we were gonna be late.
My wonderful boyfriend, aware of the Seriousness of this Issue, said, “Let’s go to another register.” We started walking through a wonderland of household oddities. My Man on a Mission suddenly got distracted again: “You need a blanket, too.” He turned around, went back to the sales lady who was mentally overwhelmed by the complexity of the return she was still attempting, and made a Serious Error in Judgement: “Ma’am, where are the blankets?”
Again: a perplexed look. “The what?”
My boyfriend is a very kind man, but now, he was just done. He looked at her, and said, “You know, blankets: you put them on beds to make them warm.”
Clik here to view.
“…sometimes you just want the comfort of knowing that somebody really does care about you (even if they show it in peculiar ways).” -Cara Lockwood
Despite her confusion over how to perform her job duties, she realized at that point he was a bit miffed about the service he was getting in this supposed-to-be-high-end department store. She was not amused by his sarcasm in the least.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking right at us. Mmmmkay. We wandered like Hebrews in the wilderness in search of the Promised Land without the aid of Rand McNally or GPS. No blankets. Anywhere. There were sheets. There were quilts. There were more comforters than you could shake a stick at. However, there were no blankets in the entire department.
By now, poor Bradley was protecting his fellow soldiers, Marines, and the world at large from radical Islamic terrorists without us. Could the blanket emergency wait? We, as Fine Upstanding Americans, needed to make the 8:00 showing. Bradley needed our support. My boyfriend was undaunted: he wanted me to have The Finest Pillows Made by the Hand of Man, and a Warm Soft Blankie too.
So, off we went, trekking further into the deep dark regions of the second floor of Macy’s, hoping against hope to find A Competent Human Being to aid us in our quest. We had a half hour. Could it be done? Would Bradley have to brave the sand and horror of the middle east without us?
Tune in next time for The Stunning Conclusion of Pillow Talk, when, believe it or not, Ikea will save Macy’s.