The Trouble with Pillows

Every now and then, I go out and wander around.  It helps me think.  Sometimes I window shop.  Sometimes I buy.  After wandering around today, I came home with two new pillows in vibrant turquoise, hoping they might add snap to the wheat-colored sofas and the other (eight) pillows of subdued colors.   Rick’s cheek gave a little telltale tick. “Do we really need more pillows?” Translation:  “Time to commit you to the loonie bin.”

Rick hid the navy blue pillow with metal studs behind the red leather corner chair.  Another pillow has gone missing.  Rick swears he didn’t do anything with it.  

You may wonder why I’m suspicious…

It’s a family legend how I went to Oregon for a visit with my folks and came home to find an empty living room. Not totally empty.  There were two metal folding chairs where a big sofa and two wing chairs had been.  Huh?  The first thought that popped into my head:  Maybe Rick sent the couch and two chairs out for cleaning.  He smiled.  “I gave it away.  Wait until you hear what happ…” I didn’t wait to hear.  I was so mad I went upstairs in a red haze, contemplating various ways of killing him.  Slowly.  Painfully.  I didn’t really have to ask why he’d done it.  He’d been telling me for months the chair had a spring coming out the back and the green plaid had to go, go, go! It took a while before I was calm enough to go back downstairs to hear what happened.  As soon as I left, he loaded the furniture into the back of his truck and headed for the Salvation Army.  They didn’t have room, and directed him to another facility.  On the way back to the truck, a lady asked him.  “Are you giving that furniture away?”  He said he was trying.  She had just fled an abusive relationship in Southern California and had rented an unfurnished apartment where she and her young son were living.  Rick said, “Show me where you live.”   She led him to her very small, very empty apartment.  The lady and her son felt like Christmas had come in August.

I wasn’t mad anymore.  We both thought it had to be a God thing.  We laugh about the incident now.  So do our Bible study friends who came on Tuesday nights and sat in metal folding chairs until we had furniture again.   (Rick had told me to find what I wanted – as long as it wasn’t green and red plaid.)

I wouldn’t blame Rick if he did toss a pillow or two.  They began multiplying like those tribbles on Star Trek.   Our youngest son counted the ones downstairs in the family room, guest bedroom and children’s room.  Seventeen!  That was before we had two ladies “remix” the living room.  They added more to the four we already had.  And we haven’t even counted the pillows in the master bedroom!  Just the other day, I went to The Bird’s Nest, one of my favorite shops in the area that has new and gently used things and is literally packed with funky, fun, frivolous fancies, and I found a Chinese silk and embroidered pillow for $16 (normally $135 in a high end shop) and another with red velvet, piping and bling for even less. Of course, I came home with both.   

One person other than I is happy with this pillow-infested haven.  Our youngest grandson loves to make a big pile of pillows so he can dive into them from the couch.  Imagine an Olympian swan dive, a jack-knife, a somersault into deep water.  He never reaches the floor.  In fact, once in the pile of pillows, he can swim in them and hide in them. 

Alas, even so, the two $10 turquoise pillows from T.J. Max will go back tomorrow. 

But there was this cute pumpkin shaped one.  Ohh, better yet, what about the turkey pillow with sequins on it? 

I don’t even have to guess what Rick will say about that one.