Oct 27, 2023 4 min read

Is there anywhere in the shopping world more enticing and seductive than the pillow aisle?

I’m talking about those big discount stores that sell things for people itching to buy something to spruce up the house. That itch took me to such a place this week to buy bath towels.

The towels are always at the back of the store, and I knew better than to walk through the pillow aisle to get there, but soon, I found myself in a canyon of puff.

Pillows and cushions were lined up on shelves like singers on risers in a choir. They were grouped by color rather than size or shape. Nestled among the large, square gray was a tiny accent pillow telling me it is thankful.

Except for my sofa pillow with a quote from the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” a Christmas gift from a friend, I avoid art that announces the sentiments, philosophies and, worst of all, the purpose of the room in which it is displayed. I saw a sign with the word Laundry carved in wood as if anyone spending time in that room needs to be reminded.

It’s easy for me to whistle past those items while shopping, but not the pillows. Each one feels like an instant, inexpensive home decorating improvement. That navy blue tasseled one would add a pop of color to my white sofa, and look! It’s only $19.99. Over there are the seat cushions. Aren’t the gray ones on the kitchen chairs looking a little tired?

My house is festooned with pillows: the ones we sit on, the ones I sleep on and the ones that are there because I wandered into the pillow aisle.

A few weeks before the pandemic, I bought a throw pillow with a beetle embroidered on it – purchased not because I like beetles (although I have nothing personal against them) but because its colors matched the throw rug in that room and also because it was marked down to $7.99. When the COVID lockdown had me working from my home office, that beetle pillow could be seen over my left shoulder on a daybed in every Zoom meeting. When I finally moved it to a guest bedroom, some of my co-workers asked what happened to the beetle.

In the store this week, I pulled a large navy blue pillow from the shelf, put it on the floor and chopped it. I didn’t punch it in the gut, but I did a karate chop across the top.

According to design influencers, this is the way to display a pillow. No longer am I to spruce up for company by grabbing the corner of my accent pillows and smacking it to settle the fluff. Now, the right esthetic is to give it a good chop. This is why even photos of celebrity homes show chopped pillows that appear to have bunny ears.

The navy pillow at the store was not choppable -a sign that it has a hard foam insert and not the preferable goose feathers. It’s the fabric and fluff version of biting a coin to determine if it’s real gold.

I apparently have inferior taste and not enough goose down in my home. The Christmas pillow doesn’t chop, and neither does the beetle pillow. But no worries: chopping pillows is probably a fad, and like my kitchen cushions, it will fade.

I left the pillow aisle without incident and made my way to the back of the store. There, I found two bath towels, fluffy and gray, and a bargain at $7.99 each.