Pillows

I'm very particular. It's really annoying but I am whom I am.  

One of my peculiar particularities is that I only sleep well on my own carefully tested and chosen combination of pillows. I have three.  I rest my head on two and I use the third as a semi-socially acceptable adult substitution for a teddy bear. Or as I call it, a "snuggle pillow."

The two "head" pillows are a complementary pair consisting of a mushy soft bottom pillow and a slightly firm yet yielding top pillow. Scientific testing has determined this to be the correct combination I require for what passes as a decent night's sleep. 

The "snuggle pillow" is spongy and squeezable. It is for wrapping your body around during nocturnal contortions. 

So the problem arises once a month on a Tuesday night. Our house cleaner comes on Tuesdays and she rotates washing the bed sheets in each of our four bedrooms each week. I don't keep track of this rotation so I never know what week is Master Bedroom week. In fact, I really don't think about it at all until I lay my weary head down approximately one hour later than I intended to be retiring.  I have summoned all remaining will to brush, rinse, clean, change and plop into bed. It is at that exact moment that I discover the "pea" under the mattress. My sixth sense of comfort detects that something is awry in the Pillowdom. My neck is at an angle 1.6 degrees too high. My legs drape over a pillowcase filled with mashed potatoes. This is all wrong and I don't have the strength to deal with it.  After years of this almost monthly occurrence, I have developed a Pavlovian response consisting of anxiety, anger and immaturity.  

If my wife is lucky she has not yet crawled into bed. She will not have to endure my pre-teen-like fit and antics. If she is not so fortunate, she will be awoken by some huffing, puffing and general grumbling. She will barely make out words and phrases like "again!" and "she does this on purpose" accompanied by some dramatic gestures as I strip the pillows of their mismatched garments. 

To facilitate the righting of the wrong, I have tatooed each of the pillows with their proper vertical daytime location. This branding allows for swift identification and reorganization, leading to a succinct conclusion to the inconvenience. Unless... 

On occasion, the house cleaner will be so negligent and careless as to not only rearrange the pillowcases of my pillows but to also actually allow them to socialize and co-mingle with their female counterparts from the other side of the bed. In her own haste to accomplish her tasks and conclude her cleaning day, she may occasionally (presumably unknowingly) conduct a pillow swap. One (or more) of my pillows may remain with my wife's pillows, replaced by the foreign feel of one (or more) of my wife's inferior pillows. 

Pity the spouse who must learn that her status is secondary to that of a pillow.  While I fully appreciate and respect the value of well earned sleep to a working wife and mother of 2, no sleeping angel will come between me and my own prerequisite for a good night's slumber. Should one of my pillows be located beneath my wife's sleeping head, I cannot be held responsible for the selfless act required for its retrieval.  Fortunately, usually a gentle verbal request will suffice; but I am not above a Navy Seal style extraction, should it become necessary. 

Once the recovery is complete, order is restored to my nest and I can finally rest easy ... until next month.