The dangerous pillowfication of America

We face a serious challenge in America.  Many men are unaware of this problem until it is too late.
College students often come home to find out that there is nothing that they can do to stop this scourge of American homes.

Of course I refer to the creeping pillowfication of American.  This is an insidious disease often hitting the best homes and laying waste to whole families.  Sometimes a bed can end up with eight to ten pillows almost over night.  They almost seem to be breeding like bunnies.  Yet it is rare that there isn't a strange and almost unimaginable variety to the pillows that show up.  I have yet to see a case with more than a couple of identical pillows. It is common to see different shapes with the same fabric, which as far as I can tell makes no sense at all.

I recently came across a particularly vicious case where the original five pillows were kicked unceremoniously off the bed and replaced with another four or five pillows.  I suspect the old pillows may mount an attempt to retake the bed which I'm sure will lead the new pillows to call in reinforcements.  The prospects are not good for ever using this bed again for sleep.

The most cruel victims of this are often husbands who in their efforts to keep pace with the economic treadmill, perhaps haven't carefully examined their spare bedrooms since the kids have gone off to college or even since they stopped reading bedtime stories to the kids.

For some strange reason, the creeping pillowfication almost always starts as the kids go off to college.  By the time the kids are all gone from the nest, the pillowfication has often turned into a full fledged epidemic, sparing no bedrooms including in some extreme cases, the master bedroom.

Sometimes kids come back from college, and barely make it through the door, exhausted from exams, and perhaps a little partying.  Yet when they for once go enthusiastically to their rooms without being told, they are often stunned to find such a serious case of pillowfication that their bedrooms are almost unrecognizable.

The real seriousness of an acute pillowfication situation is often not discovered until a poor husband is kicked out of the bedroom some night for snoring.  He wanders in a state of near sleep walking into one of the many unused bedrooms in the now almost vacant household.  Yet it doesn't look like the bedroom where he used to read stories to the kids.  Sometimes the changes are so dramatic the husband thinks he is in the wrong house or in a dream. 

No matter how strong his domestic side is, he is unlikely to be able handle the situation without feminine intervention which certainly isn't a viable option.  What husband is brave enough to wake a sleeping wife to ask about runaway pillowfication?  So he ends up fearing the bed with uncountable pillows, arranged in mysterious and impossible to duplicate patterns.  He may wander off to another bedroom only to find the situation even farther out of hand.  The only solution is often to retire to the basement and sleep on a sofa or kick the dog out of his dog bed.

The pillowfication often happens through secret infectious agents sometimes called decorators.  It can happen right under your nose with no warning.  Sometimes the only certain notice that you are in trouble is a mysterious drop in the bank account balance.

There are few true early warning signs of a coming infection, but when you do see some of the critical indicators, you must act with utmost speed or all will be lost.

The only reliable sign happens to be small fabric swatches carefully and inconspicuously placed on the beds.  Sometimes they change colors and patterns a number of times.  When only one swatch remains, and it stays in place for more than 24 hours,  you can be sure that nothing short of a massive intervention will save the day.  A muddy Labrador Retriever on the bed spread is practically the only cure at this stage.

Otherwise you might as well face the music and get an Aerobed.  If you spend significant time out of the bedroom looking for a spot to rest your weary body, that can be your only practical choice.  That is unless you want to face a bed that needs an instruction manual and photographs to disassemble.

America has faced many challenges, yet I fear we may have met our match in the creeping pillowfication of our bedrooms.  This nearly hopeless disease, makes Kudzu look slow and benign.