My wife puts 14 pillows on our bed.
The bed needs 2.
I don’t normally think about these 12 extra pillows. But I am now.
I am now because we went on vacation last week and the bed in the house we rented did not have 12 extra pillows. It had 2.
My wife’s 12 extra pillows are for show. This is sad because no one but us ever sees them. If they were a Broadway show, they would have been shut down.
In no particular order, they include:
1) The two big gold ones. They rest against the headboard, behind each of the two “normal people” pillows.
2) The two big blue ones. They sit on top of the two normal people pillows.
3) The two small square pillows. Those go in front of the big blue ones.
4) The two horizontal, stripey ones. They go in front of the square pillows.
5) The four “middle section” pillows (those that sit between the two normal people pillows). They include:
- The patterned pillow that goes between the two gold ones.
- The checkerboard-pattern pillow that goes in front of it.
- The beige square one that goes in front of that.
- And finally, the tube-shaped one (aka Tubey). It goes in front of all of them. (I feel a bit sorry for this one. He’s different than the others.)
The reason you must know about these pillows is that they are costing me my life.
You see, I spend two minutes arranging them when I make the bed every morning.
Over the course of a year, that’s 730 minutes.
I am 41-years-old. Assuming the normal statistical course of events, I should live 36 more years. 730 minutes times 36 more years equals 26,280 minutes.
Yes, that’s right.
These pillows will take 26,280 minutes off my life. Or 18 full days.
18 full days.
Five days longer than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Three times as long as the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Think about that. Israel doubled its territory in just 1/3 the time it takes me to arrange my wife’s pillows.
And all for show. A show that no one ever sees. So if I don’t tell you about them, those 18 days are gone gone gone.
So here is a diagram.

So please, take a moment to admire the arrangement.
You’re all I’ve got.
Make my life worth something.