Sin of the Month • Abby Bardi
	Pillows

I've been having trouble with my pillow.

You may be wondering how much trouble a person can have with a pillow. Pillows seem so passive–but don't let their cooperative demeanor fool you. Pillows can cause you to lose sleep at night.

Recently, while I was sleeping, my pillow decided to explode. As it happens, this was no ordinary pillow, but a Mediflow® Waterbase™ pillow which contains–at least, it used to contain–a layer of water at its base that, according to the Mediflow® website, "provides outstanding comfort and responsive support for the head and neck." One minute I was sleeping on a pillow that had been "personalized to [my] preferred comfort level," and the next minute, I was all wet.

I did not find this comfortable at all. In fact, I was horrified that a pillow for which I had paid 50 dollars would only provide me with 1,185 nights of sleeping pleasure before giving up the ghost. (I will explain in a minute how I happen to know the total number of nights.)

I know–no one in her right mind would pay 50 bucks for a pillow. But my chiropractor, in whom I place enormous trust on all subjects except for politics (his wife is a "Democrat for Ehrlich"–in other words, a Republican), told me that the Mediflow® pillow was worth the money, that it was an investment in my nocturnal future, and that his son was so attached to his Mediflow® pillow that he refused to leave home without it. The thought of this teenage boy on school field trips clutching his pillow like a blankie was irresistible. That must be some pillow, I thought, forking over the 50 clams.

It turns out that Mediflow® sells a pretty nice pillow. It should, in my opinion, be stitched together with gold thread for 50 smackers, but I will say that it made for a pretty good night's sleep.

Until the explosion.

When I awoke in a puddle, I immediately realized what had happened. I put my poor soaked pillow in the bathtub to dry off and went back to sleeping with a normal pillow. (I have to say that the normal pillow was not so far inferior to the special Waterbase™ pillow that I would recommend that anyone shell out 50 greenbacks for the latter.) The next time I saw my chiropractor, I told him what had happened, and he assured me that the company was very good about replacing defective merchandise.

However, it turns out that he is no better judge of consumer relations than he is of politics or pillows.

When I called the company, a polite-sounding man answered. I imagined him sitting at an old-fashioned wooden desk with a cup full of pencils, waiting patiently for the rare phone call from an unhappy customer, and I was sure that he would be as distraught about the fate of my pillow as I.

How innocent I was. He informed me–politely–that in order to replace my defective pillow under the two-year warranty, he would need proof of purchase. I would also have to mail him the pillow's stopper to prove that I was no longer filling the pillow with water. I assured him that I was not the least bit tempted to risk another night of flotation, but he was not convinced.

As for proof of purchase, I don't know about you, but I don't happen to save my pillow receipts. It's just a quirk of mine–I'm sure most people have a file cabinet full of them, but when I buy a pillow, I just toss the receipt away recklessly and hope for the best.

The polite man told me that without the proof of purchase and the pillow's stopper, I was not getting a replacement pillow under warranty.

For the next two weeks, my chiropractor's staff tirelessly searched their records to find my proof of purchase, finally locating it in their old database. Unfortunately, the records showed that I had purchased the pillow three years ago–my Mediflow® Waterbase™ pillow was out of warranty.

You can call me naïve about pillows, but I went ahead and called the company again, explaining my situation. I told him that I think that when you pony up 50 bills for a pillow, even if the pillow only comes with a two-year warranty, there is some expectation created by the ridiculous amount of money involved that the pillow will have a lifespan of more than three years.

"That's 1,185 nights," the man on the phone said. It was clearly the same polite man I had talked to before, still sitting at his wooden desk, sharpening endless pencils and waiting patiently for a phone call. "How much did you pay for the pillow?"

I told him that I had paid 50 hogs for the Mediflow® Waterbase™ pillow.

"That's only four and a half cents per night," he said.

I told him I thought that was a little steep for a pillow.

He said he would be willing to sell me a replacement pillow at a discount. I asked him how much the discount would be. "I could do…" he thought for a minute, "35 dollars for the replacement. Plus shipping."

"How much is shipping?" I asked.

"Nine ninety-nine," he said.

I did some quick math and decided that I would never buy another Mediflow® Waterbase™ pillow as long as I lived, and that I would tell everyone I know that a Mediflow® Waterbase™ pillow might decide to self-destruct while you are sleeping and leave you in an oozing pool of ick. I told him this, and he thanked me politely for my feedback. When I hung up the phone, I knew immediately who to blame.

Ralph Nader.

Back in the good old days, before he became a presidential candidate, Ralph Nader ran a number of consumer-advocacy organizations in Washington. When I first moved there, I knew a lot of people who worked for him. They made less money than anyone in the entire city, but none of them minded because they were committed to what they were doing, and because, they said, Ralph himself lived in a crummy apartment with no furniture and didn't seem to care about anything but Doing Good.

For years, I adored Ralph Nader. Every time my rights as a consumer were respected by a merchant, every time I got a refund, a replacement, or even a kind word from a company whose product I was unhappy with, I gave Ralph the credit for it.

Even now, when I evaluate the presidential candidates that aren't criminals who should be behind bars for misleading the American public, i.e., when I compare the ideas of Ralph Nader and John Kerry, it's clear that Ralph and I are on the same page politically. All down the line, he and I couldn't be more in agreement if he had come over to my house and asked me to draw up his platform for him.

But I would never, ever, ever vote for him. In fact, if I saw him today, I'd have to fight the urge to smack him upside his head to thank him for the 2000 election, Florida, and Bush. I am familiar with the argument that he did not cause Gore to lose, that this was Gore's fault, but I don't think we can avoid acknowledging that if no one had voted for Ralph Nader, Al Gore would be president today. No hard feelings if you voted for him–I understand why you did it. The person I can't forgive is Ralph Nader for his arrogance, his egomania, his refusal to say he's sorry for what happened.

In fact, when I think about it, what I really wanted from the polite pillow man was an apology. Even if he didn't send me a new pillow, I wanted to hear him say from his heart that he was sorry for my loss, my inconvenience, my deluge.

But it was clear that the polite man did not care about me and my Mediflow® Waterbase™ pillow. He had the statutory right, perhaps even the ethical duty, to refuse to replace my pillow, which was, legally, out of warranty. He was adhering to the Mediflow® ideology. He was doing what he thought was right.

If only Ralph Nader had stuck with consumer advocacy, I thought as I perused the orthopedic promises made on the Mediflow® website, we would all still be sleeping tight.