Wednesday, December 9, 2009

My first husband

Remember those big, high-backed pillows with arms that everyone had in the mid 90s? Husbands, they were called? They looked a little something like this:


This is not to be confused with the boyfriend pillow, which I was just introduced to, thanks to Google images. The boyfriend pillow is a much more literal, more creepy version of the husband model, with a life-sized arm (just one, mind you) and plush hand which you can wrap around you.


May not look like much just laying flat like that, but look at it in action:



Apparently, the ideal place to use your boyfriend pillow is on an armchair. Maybe the manufacturer thought photographing it in a bed was too risqué, might muddy the waters and stick the boyfriend pillow in the same category as the inflatable man or other kinds of overt sex toys.


I can’t vouch for the boyfriend pillow but the husband – oh, man, how I loved it! Perfect way to study while in bed during college. Then when your boyfriend would come over, you’d have to give your husband the boot because there simply wasn’t enough room for the both of them.


Back in college, of course, I didn’t know what it was like to have a real husband. Now I understand that no man could ever provide such a perfect blend of firm yet downy support. I know that no man could prop me up for so many hours without complaint. Of course no pillow can wake with the kids at 6am and feed them breakfast while I sleep in. Or put together Ikea furniture. Or drive the car with one hand while holding a paci in the baby’s mouth in the backseat with the other. So there’s that.


I’ll let you in on a little secret. As I type this, I am using a bona-fide blue husband to prop me up I’m at my parents place in New Jersey, the great storage center for everything anyone in my family ever owned. Because my parents never throw anything out, not only can I use a husband to blog, I can pull my hair back with a scrunchie, wear a Duran Duran shirt from the 1990 tour, and entertain my kids with a VHS copy of Babe.


Packrats. You’ve got to love them.