You are Sleeping With Billions of Tiny Bugs

I looked at pillows while I was Christmas shopping today. I also dropped $150 on an electric blanket, but that's another tragic story. I learned that down pillows cost like $140 each. Good God.

I want new pillows because I'm pretty sure mine have syphilis, AIDS, mange, and Lou Gehrig's Disease by now. They're so old, if they were people, they'd be in college. I live in a town where you will occasionally sweat up your bed due to power outages and hurricanes, and I think there is a limit to what you can do to get a pillow clean after years on the edge of the tropics.

At Bed Bath & Beyond, I got confused. There were so many kinds of pillows. I'm perfectly happy with feathers or down, and in the past I've been horrified by the feel of foam and fiber fill. But it occurred to me while I was standing there that synthetic fibers are not what they used to be. We've had Thinsulate for one or two decades, and I have Coolmax shirts that are better than cotton. So I decided to come home and read up.

It looks like down is still king. Supposedly, the new synthetics feel like down, but they only last a third as long. And the new down pillows don't cause allergy problems. HOWEVER, since down costs three to four times as much, I think you have to be a fool to buy it. I'd rather have a new pillow every three years than keep a moldy, stained down pillow for ten AND pay for professional cleaning.

Moxie swears by microfiber pillows from Anna's Linens. They're dirt cheap, so I may go check them out. I could afford to buy these things and throw them out at the end of every year.

A disgusting allergy site says the average mattress doubles in weight over ten years, because it fills up with dead dust mites and their poop. I really hope that isn't true.

Maybe if I get new pillows I'll finally sleep again.