Pillow talk

Pillow talk is the intimate conversation that occurs between two sexual partners; usually accompanied by cuddling, caresses, and other forms of physical intimacy. This story has nothing to do with talking.

It has everything to do with pillows.

While followers of the piss stories trial have been keeping themselves busy with dolus eventualis, coitus interruptus, and mendacem memorem esse oportet, I have been pondering a much more fundamental issue: what has gone wrong with our pillows?

I’d like to think of myself as a hard-pillow man – Rof en onbeskof. And I like my pillows to be the same.

The closest I’ve ever come to finding the perfect pillow, was the legendary Railway kameeldrol. This was the pillow/cushion found on the seats in the First Class compartments of the old South African Railways (when it was still a viable form of transport), back in the good old days of apartheid.

Let me try to describe a typical kameeldrol:

A kameeldrol was a cylindrical pillow (bolster); supposedly to be used by passengers for back, or arm, support. It is a known fact that a kameeldrol, flung from the window of a train moving at full throttle, could kill a bull elephant at fifty yards. Of course it was illegal. But I’m just saying. It was hard. Like me.

The kameeldrol, or KD, as it was affectionately known, was upholstered with the same imitation, leather-like material as the seats – normally green in colour. It was padded with firm stuffing material – coconut coir, gravel, or horsehair, I suspect.

You must have seen a punching bag? Punching bags are strung up on chains and assaulted by frustrated people who enjoy punching and kicking the stuffing out of poor, defenseless objects.

Well, a kameeldrol looked very much like an immature punching bag. Smaller, but without the chains and the pains. I cannot remember ever seeing anyone punching or kicking a kameeldrol. Besides, I would have defended it with my life.

I loved sleeping on a kameeldrol. It offered firm support, kept its shape, and never tossed or turned during the night. A word of warning though: you always had to cover your kameeldrol with a towel before going to sleep on it. Your ear would tend to form a vacuum on the smooth leather-like fabric – and stick to it like a suction cup.

Separating a kameeldrol from your ear would be accompanied by a loud: “Pop!” This could be quite embarrassing if you had been sharing the compartment with strangers.

Ah, such a pity those days are gone forever.

Like the mouse trap, mankind has always been trying to invent a better pillow. Without much success, I might add.

I’ve just spent a wonderful week at a holiday resort in the bush; doing some teambuilding with my loving wife. It was great. Except for the pillows.

I had the choice of three different models on my side of the bed: The first was similar to trying to sleeping on a balloon; my head kept bouncing around like an energetic pumpkin on a trampoline.

The next one was filled with something which felt like cheese puffs or polystyrene packing chips. For every movement of my head, it would make a counterproductive crunchy sound, in the opposite direction.

The third pillow was a marvel. It looked all plumped up like an overstuffed Christmas chicken, but the moment I put my head on it, it would instantly deflate and fall flat, leaving only the empty pillow case behind.

I spent the past week in Heaven. At night, I was tortured by the Three Pillows from Hell. Coming back home was bliss.

Sleep expert Michael Breus, (PBUH), a clinical psychologist and author of Beauty Sleep: Look Younger, Lose Weight, and Feel Great Through Better Sleep, has this to say: “If your pillow is past its prime, it may contain dead skin cells, mold, wigs, cigarette butts, fungus, the feathers of dead chickens, chewing gum, false teeth, hearing aids, and dust mites, which make more than half of an older pillow’s weight. Change your pillow at least once a week.”

What does this guy know? I bet he has never even heard of a kameeldrol; let alone having one lovingly stuck to his ear.

(BTW, Sakkie, did you know that a “cake lifter,” is called a “kussing,” in Afrikaans?)