Don’t Throw Throw Pillows

While the answer to What Women Need is perfectly clear to women, it has been a bedeviling mystery to men ever since the first guy dragged home the wrong wildebeest: “I said small. Does this look small to you, turtle brain?”

 

Men pretty much settle for whatever’s easy and stick with it to avoid confusion. Women know exactly what they want and spend half their harried lives trying to train us to know what it is. I’m still in training, but as a public service I’ll pass along a couple of tips.

 

For one, it’s very important to remember that women need a lot more of certain things than we do. It’s a law of nature, and fighting it is like fighting gravity: you won’t change a thing, and it’ll still pull you down. Among the things a woman needs more of are: calcium, iron, time in the bathroom, candles, heart-to-heart communication, an occasional girls’ night out with a gay guy who can dance, information about the neighbors’ personal lives, an elegant little purse that holds lipstick and a credit card, an epic purse that holds an entire Walgreen’s, constant assurance that her butt is exactly the right size, things made of gold, silk and wicker, unguents, time to express her feelings, time to discuss why you have no feelings – or the wrong feelings – and pillows.

 

Among the things men need more of are: televised sports.

 

Today, we’ll concentrate on pillows.

 

Men need one pillow, unless they’ve got a rolled-up sweater, which works fine and also satisfies a man’s need for multi-purpose objects. Men need things like clock-radios, reversible belts, and combination lug-wrench/wire-stripper/pewter engravers. This simplifies their lives because they have fewer things to break and lose. It also satisfies the need to impress their male friends: “See, you just flip this release gnurl and the flush-bracket toggles over into the flange nidget and you’ve got a gander bit. Neat, huh?”

 

For reasons still hidden in the genetic code, men need only one pillow and women need legions. If your mate is like mine, she needs several big, oversized pillows with lacy things around the edges, platoons of mid-sized pillows to prop up on the larger pillows, and squadrons of little throw pillows to prop up on them. This way she can render a queen-sized bed virtually impenetrable. And if you take even the smallest pillow, she will know. If you move a pillow to, God forbid, use it for something, then suddenly remember you’re not supposed to actually use pillows and furtively put it back, she will know and will interrogate you. So you’re better off just telling her that you were temporarily insane and moved a pillow and put it back before you came to your senses (do NOT tell her you grabbed it to smack something crawling up the wall ... brrrr).

 

If you want to score some brownie points, surprise her one morning by making up the bed while she’s in the shower. She’ll love it. First, make up the bed, carefully smoothing out any wads or wrinkles larger than a toddler. Then try to remember exactly how she arranges the pillows and arrange them as artistically as you can. Stand back, cock your head, try to see in your mind’s eye how she does it, and keep tweaking until you get it exactly right.

 

She’ll get a huge kick out of this, because you won’t even be close. No matter how hard you try, your artistic arrangement of pillows will look like sandbags holding back the levee. This will make her laugh and say you’re sweet and precious and hug you while wearing the towel, and one thing might lead to another.

 

Finally, an important word about throw pillows: don’t. Throw pillows are meant to be propped, stacked, displayed and arranged, but never thrown. Come to think of it, you can do just about anything with a throw pillow except throw it. Take my word for it.