Sunday Shopping

Hamster eating a nut (maybe passing gas)

To help speed the day along I went to the Scarborough Town Centre, a shopping mall that's been around since my youth. I used to visit it on a regular basis when I went to visit with my paternal grandmother. Not really much has changed. There's still the hot air balloons that float up into the air and it's still busy with people. Dragging Marc along with me I decided it was my mission to get my watch fixed and maybe buy a new pillow.

Pillow techology has fascinated me since my trip to London just over a year ago. The Holiday Inn I stayed in near Victoria station had a pillow menu. You had a choice of 5 pillow levels ranging from extra soft to extra firm. I thought this was amazing. That and the desk with the different plug adaptors built into it.

Today I found out that there are also different pillow sizes. The smaller "standard" size is about four times the thickness of my existing pillow. Actually my exisiting pillow is so old and flat it might as well be a towel folded three times in a pillow cover. There was a grandpa pillow model on sale for $7.00. Marc thought that was a good deal. I resisted and moved on. There were body sized pillows. "Great for cuddling". That's one of the selling points displayed on the plastic wrapper. I wondered if that was a big selling point. I mean why put it on the bag. It's geared towards someone. Sort of like the tag lines "Contains no calories" or "Fat free" are geared towards weight watchers.

Some guy in marketing probably looked at the pillow and said "I've got it! Let's target all those loney people out there that have no partners and are too old to cuddle stuffed animals". I then thought about all the loney people out there "cuddling" their pillow as they cried themselves to sleep. It was a sad moment.

Other pillow technology included ones that had dips in them for your head so your neck was supported. We even saw one that you put water into it. I'm not really sure what that would do. If you had a cat, I could imagine coming home to a big fat puddle where your face hits the bed.

Not really a great idea. I led me to thinking about other things. A few years ago I bought, what I thought was a great idea at the time, sneakers that had little pockets of air trapped in the soles. When walking the air would move from the front to the back of the shoe with each step. It felt great. You were literally walking on air.

Once I started wearing the shoes the feeling of air walking lasted about half an hour. I stepped on a tack. The air came out. One foot was walking on air. The other foot felt like it was walking directly on pavement. The situation got worse. Later on that day it rained. The shoe with the air hole became a instrument of loud sqeeky sounds that sounded like hamster flatulence. At least what I'd imagine if a hamster had gas. Cartoony but existing under my foot with every second step.

Now that I think about it, that particular Reebok shoe line didn't last very long.