These Pillowcases Should Be Illegal

They're a pillow SHAM!

Editor’s note: Sometimes, I feel compelled to share a strongly held opinion. This is one of those times.

I'm not generally one to regulate the personal lives of others. Live and let live, I say. However, certain actions are so monstrous that I have to make an exception. That includes a crime that has become all too commonplace in contemporary society…

Violence against sleepers. Assault with a drowsy weapon. I'm talking, of course, about decorative pillowcases.

The proper name for these horrors is a pillow sham—and, ho ho, what a sham they are! Never has a product been more aptly labeled. You see, pillows are generally made to be comfortable, while shams are somehow the exact opposite. I can only guess that whoever designs these things makes it a point to find the scratchiest fabrics on earth, then embroiders the hell out of them just to add extra texture. I've experienced decorative pillowcases with actual beads sewn on them, which reveals the truth: these aren't meant to be used as pillows.

I admit that I can be overly utilitarian. My wife and I often find ourselves at odds over form versus function. She wants things to look nice; I want them to work well. I usually lose these arguments, but I’ve drawn a line with our bedding because I just can’t abide a form that detracts from function.

Let’s put it this way: if pillows occurred naturally in nature, decorative shams would be an evolutionary dead end. They make no sense. Buying decorative pillows is like getting a second car to put on top of your regular car when it’s parked, except the second car is more expensive than your actual car and also doesn’t drive.¹

In fact, you can tell pillow shams aren’t actually useful because of how expensive they are. Many even seem like they’re dry-clean-only, which is one way to know for sure that they’re always dirty. They just sit around all day like high-priced dust traps, collecting allergens that you then place directly onto your face.

Perhaps you're reading this and thinking, “Just don't use them.” But what do I do with them then? If I take them off the bed in a hotel or someone’s guest room, they're going to be just as useless as they were before, plus no matter where I put them they’ll be taking up half the room’s square footage. Then there’s the fact that more pillows mean it’s more work to make the bed, which means I'm less likely to make the bed... thus further reducing the utility of the decorative pillows!

Some might not be courageous enough to have this opinion, but I believe that decorative pillows are a symptom of the rise in selfishness plaguing American society. Even if you think these pillowcases make your rooms look nicer, think of the social cost. Each decorative pillow represents minutes of human life wasted daily in arrangement and storage. Multiply that by millions of households, and we're losing centuries of productivity to fabric that contributes nothing to human comfort or happiness.

Some will accuse me of exaggeration. “They're just decorative pillows,” they'll say. “Don't you have bigger issues to worry about?”

The answer is yes. But once I’m riled up, there’s nothing you can do to stop me! It’s my newsletter!

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MORE STRONG OPINIONS

1. Now that I think about it, this may be a business model Tesla should look into.