1056 – Pillow Pet Adventures

Episode 1056 – Pillow Pet Adventures

 

[START OF RECORDING]

 

SCOOTER:    Friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it’s time for the podcaster that’s here to take your mind off of stuff and keep you company, patrons.  Thank you so much for making that possible.  What do you say we slow it down and get on with the show?

 

INTRO:    [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’ll do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake.  It could be thoughts you’re thinking about on your mind that…from the past, the present, the future, it could be physical sensations, it could be feelings, emotions coming up for you.  Maybe it’s changes in time or temperature or routine.  Maybe it’s travel or you’re expecting something, you got something coming up, maybe just…whatever it is.  It could be anything.

 

Whatever’s keeping you awake, I’m here to keep you company and kinda take your mind off of it.  Not immediately; it’s kind of like a slow thing.  The way I do that or the way I propose to attempt to do it is to send my voice across the deep, dark night.  I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents, so that means I’m gonna go off-topic, I’m gonna get mixed up, then I’m gonna go…backtrack and talk about nothing, but all to keep you company so you could fall asleep.  So, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, and that is kinda how the show works.  It kinda feels like, are you ever gonna get to the point?  Are you ever gonna make sense?  I say no, I’m here to keep you company and to talk about something you don’t need to listen to.

 

That’s one of the first things that might be hard if you’re a new listener.  You say wait a second, this is a podcast I don’t really listen to, but you’re talking and you’re supposed to tell a story, right?  I say yeah, eventually, but it’s kind of a story you could listen to.  So, the podcast is here, and I’m here to the very end.  So, if you can’t sleep, you can listen, but I think the fact that the listening is optional…you say okay, you’re gonna be here to tell me a story for the next hour or so, and I say yeah, not directly a story that goes from A to B to C, but yeah, I’ll tell you a story.  I’ll go off-topic, I’ll get mixed up, I’ll go on tangents.  But yeah, it’s a…you could listen to it.  It’s like background noise, but just a upgraded version of it.  So, that’s one thing, is this is a podcast you don’t really listen to.  That takes some getting used to.

 

In fact, this…there’s so much getting used to it that for most people, it takes two or three tries for the show to kinda take hold, where you realize oh, wait, I don’t hold onto the show.  Sleep With Me; the way we take hold is by you letting go.  You say oh wait, oh, it’s not a…’cause at first if you’re skeptical or doubtful or you’re trying to make sense of this podcast or wait and anticipate when I’m gonna put you to sleep or whatever…that’s the other thing; really don’t put you to sleep.  I’m here to keep you company while you drift off, and just in case you can’t sleep, I’m here to the very end, or if you need a break during the day, I’ll be here.  So, that’s a couple things to know.  What else?  Oh, give it a few tries.  That’s what hundreds of thousands of people have said; hey, it took two or three tries.

 

At first I didn’t like the show or I didn’t get it, and then I realized oh yeah, exactly.  The most important thing I could tell you is that the reason I make the show is because you deserve a good night’s sleep.  Your sleep is important and you’re important.  If I can help you get the sleep you need and you deserve, that is important to me, to take your mind off of stuff so you can drift off, because then your life is gonna be a little bit better, a little bit more manageable.  Ideally at some point you could be out there and you could be flourishing.  So, if I can be a part of that…and moreso, in a less-halfway-there way, I’m someone who’s gone through a lot of bouts of sleeplessness and it makes me dread bedtime, or to start to get…have feelings about it hours before bed, ‘cause I say well, don’t know what’s gonna happen.

 

I want to be there for you for that part, to make it feel less lonely, and maybe take a little bit of that strong feeling out of it.  Well, you say well, at least Scoots is gonna be there, so I can…I might not be looking forward to bedtime, but at least I don’t need to dread it anymore, ‘cause I got my bore-friend, my friend in the deep, dark night, my bore-bae, my bore-cuz, my bore-sib.  He’s gonna keep me company so the deep, dark night might feel a little bit less so, ‘cause I’m gonna have him there, and there’s hundreds of thousands of other people listening too that kinda are going through the same thing.  We all know how it feels.  That’s the other reason I make the show, because I know how it feels there.  That’s why I call it the deep, dark night.  So, that’s why I make the show.

 

A couple other things that can throw you off if you’re new is the structure of the show, and that’s understandable ‘cause our structure’s very different, but it serves a very specific set of purposes.  So, I just want to tell you about that.  So, the show starts off with a greeting; friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.  Normally I say something funny, but I just didn’t have anything silly or funny on the top of my mind.  But the goal of the greeting is so that you feel welcome, you feel seen, and you say okay, this show is a little bit lighthearted.  About something serious, but a little bit lighthearted.  So, that’s the greeting.  Then there’s support; support for the podcast, ‘cause the podcast comes out for free twice a week so anybody that needs it can listen to it for free.

 

The way we’re able to do that is through sponsors and the patrons.  Then there’s support for listeners, then there’s an intro, which is separate from all that stuff.  The intro is actually a show within a show.  The intro, it serves a few purposes, and it’s made this way so that one, it can introduce new people to the podcast, two, it’s new every time.  I don’t repeat the intros, or I don’t have a script; I kinda have a general structure I follow, but that you get something new every single time so that whatever part of you who’s keeping you awake can’t say oh, here goes Scoots again.  You really never know when I’m gonna get mixed up and I’m gonna go off-topic.  So, it gives you something new, because I feel like repetitive stuff has never worked for me in the past.

 

It’s worked for me repetitively twice or three times, and then I say…my brain just knows.  Oh boy, now it’s gonna start raining there on the tent, and then it’s gonna loop in eighteen minutes.  So, that’s one part of the intro.  It’s a show within a show because…and it goes on and on and on for like, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes.  That part is that it’s a part of the wind-down routine for the majority of listeners.  That doesn’t mean there’s a wrong way to use this podcast.  As you become a regular listener, you might find that you want to skip ahead, or you might find you’re already in bed falling asleep, and that’s great.  But for a lot of people that listen to the show…and you might want to try this out, is that the intro is their wind-down time.

 

So, you could start getting ready for bed and listen to the intro, you could get in bed and get comfortable, or you could be on the couch or on the floor.  That’s what I’ve been doing the last few nights…doing your wind-down routine and getting into bed in a figurative sense and not so much a…you could…well, I guess it’s not a figurative sense.  I don’t know.  Having a wind-down routine; it’s something that I know works most of the time.  Not all the time, but having some sort of transition between wake time and trying to go to sleep time, and that’s what the intro is.  It’s the transition.  So, you could listen to story-only episodes on Patreon or skip ahead, but try it out at least, even if you’ve been listening for a few weeks.  Say okay, I’m gonna try a wind-down routine.  Maybe I’ll doodle.

 

Or for me, I’ve been meditating, but I’ve been lying on the floor next to Koa with my legs up on my bed.  None of that’s based on any other thing other than huh, I said let me try this position here, ‘cause then I can put my head on Koa’s dog bed so she feels like I’m there for her.  But I don’t know why I have my legs up.  I just said, well…well, I guess ‘cause there’s not enough room for me to lie down where her bed is.  It’s close to my bed, but not where I would step out of bed, obviously, because Koa would be sleeping there.  I don’t know, I just lie there, do some meditating, I do some journaling, do my foam rolling, though I’m…obviously my legs aren’t up on the bed on that.  But that’s the intro, is a wind-down time.  Then there’s business between the intro and the show.

 

Again, that’s how we’re free twice a week, the sponsors there.  Then there’s our bedtime story.  Tonight it’ll be about a Pillow Pet that took its own journey.  Then there’s thank-yous at the end of the show.  That’s all…I mean, I guess that’s about it.  It’s something new if you’re a regular listener.  You might say…usually Koa used to sleep in Sophia’s room, even when Sophia’s not at my house.  Then sometimes Koa would sleep in my room.  Then lately I said, do you want to sleep in my room?  I noticed a couple times she would go upstairs and sleep in the living room/common room, whatever.  I said, do you want to sleep in my…?  I said, I noticed you’re sleeping upstairs.  You want to come in my room and sleep?  I’ll set a bed up again.  I didn’t know you wanted to sleep in the same room as me.  That’s been nice.

 

Her presence has been nice, and it’s also been nice that we have a little wind-down time.  I think it helps Koa too, because I say…otherwise I guess I’d feel R-U-D-E.  I’d say okay, you get in your bed, I’ll get in my bed, ‘cause I think that’s one of the things she liked about Sophia’s bed.  Maybe this is too…going too much, too much pandering.  But even when Sophia wasn’t at my house, the nights she doesn’t stay with me, I would get in bed with Koa in her bed and read next to Koa as part of my wind-down routine.  Then I would go and get in my bed.  I’d say, goodnight, Koa.  Then I pat her on the head or whatever, and I go get in my bed.  So, now we’re working on…you know, bedtime resiliency.  I guess I was trying to make a joke about it, but it’s not a joke.

 

It’s like, having a bedtime routine is more just about having that time set aside, and then it can kinda be malleable.  You say okay, well, now we’ll do it on the floor in my room.  Not as comfortable as a bed, but there is some comfort to it, ‘cause I’m close to my doggy-poo and I’m chilling out.  But I think that’s it.  I make the show because you’re important and your sleep is important.  I hope I can help.  Now, like I said, this doesn’t work for everybody.  If you definitely…I say, give this show a few tries.  It’s free, but if you definitely don’t like the show, sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou is a place where you could find more sleepy stuff, sleep audio and stuff like that, sleep podcasts to check out.  But yeah, I’m glad you’re here.  I really appreciate your time.  I work really hard, I yearn and I strive, and I really hope I can help you fall asleep, and here’s a couple of ways when your hand hits that fridge tomorrow to remember of how I do it free twice a week.  Thanks.

 

Alright everybody, tonight is…it’s time for a tale that is both real and imagined.  I don’t know what to call it.  Pillow Pet, Where Have You Gone?  Oh, Pillow Pet, Oh Pillow Pet, Where Have You Gone?  It starts not that long ago, believe it or not, the summer of…a summer of a year, a recent year that had just gone by.  The most recent summer, if you’re listening.  During that summer, a family went on a trip.  There was parental figures, there was grand-parental figures, and there was a child, a very loving child.  She was at a stage in her life where she was getting…going between being a tween and a teen, which is not easy, because technically when you’re a teen, you’re…you get…depending on what…could be considered an adult, or you’re not an adult, or you get treated like…kind of like…and you’re changing, your responsibilities are changing, all of that.

 

But there was one or two steady things in this child’s life, and one of those things was Pillow Pet.  Pillow Pet was what you would call a stuffy or a stuffed animal, maybe could be a corporate brand, but it was also…just happened to be the name.  If you say well, that’s a Pillow Pet.  That’s what it is when you buy it.  Its name is Pillow Pet, by the way.  That’s what she called this thing.  It was Pillow Pet.  Actually, it was important…the name is important because there was other Pillow Pets in this kid’s life.  There was a frog-like Pillow Pet that was not called Pillow Pet.  If you had to ask me…if you put me on the spot, you say Scoots, tell me exactly more about this Pillow Pet, what it is physically, and break it down for me.  I’d say okay, I’ll try.  I could try to do that.  So, a Pillow Pet, I believe, is a toy.

 

Now, I think it’s a toy that may have only been purchased at drug stores, but I’m not sure about that, so don’t quote me.  It could have been more popular than that.  Maybe at the time, it was popular.  It’s a stuffed animal or a stuff…plush toy.  My impression was that it was something that could be folded into a pillow and then unfolded and played with.  That’s what the original Pillow Pets may have been, but this Pillow Pet that I’m speaking of was…I think it could have been folded up into a smaller pillow, but it was the shape of a small, flat pillow, about…it was a rec…it’s rectangular and not square.  But if you said comparable to a throw pillow, but about three-quarters of the throw pillow, ‘cause it was a rectangle, not a square.

 

It’s a rectangle where the sides…the length…it’s a rectangle width-wise and not height-wise, so it’s wider than it is tall.  Its thickness I would put at about one-and-a-half to two inches from puff to puff.  Maybe three inches if you’re really…at first discovery.  This Pillow Pet I would say was a cow style, though it could have been a dalmatian.  I’m sorry, I guess that’s my first apology to Pillow Pet.  Oh Pillow Pet, oh Pillow Pet, where art thou?  My first apology is that yeah, it was…I mean, I’m pretty sure it was a cow.  So, it had…so, it was a rectangle.  It was soft, like a really nice fur on one side, and then another belly-like fur on the other side.  You could use it as a pillow.  I would need to fold it over as a prop pillow.

 

Then it had a little plush head that also was not intrusive if you were using it as a pillow, and a tail, and maybe a couple hands.  It was very portable, so good for taking on trips.  Of all the plush you would take…and normally for this…for my…for this young child, there was a polar bear, which was a polar bear, a plush polar bear, and there was a dalmatian of the 101 Dalmatians…name I forget.  Those two are still with us, still part of our family.  Pillow Pet, you are too, ‘cause…oh, not our family; this is a fictional…is this a…this is actually…no, it’s a true story and a fictional…well, not fiction.  So, we made this trip this one summer, and Pillow Pet was coming along for the ride.  Now, if you’re a plush and you’re on vacation, you don’t get to do everything, so Pillow Pet was there in the room at the Caribbean Beach Resort in…I think Trinidad North was the area we were in, maybe.

 

Don’t think it was Trinidad South.  The Caribbean Beach Resort is a Disney resort, very bright buildings to be themed after different areas in the Caribbean.  You could say that it is very Disney-esque as far as…you say okay, whatever, bright, pastely-type buildings.  There’s a lake, a canal-type lake that they have at a lot of places.  A lot of walking.  None of this would have been important to Pillow Pet, but it is kind of important because you had to walk a lot, which…go get your coffee, you had to walk, go get your soda or your food, you had to walk, go to a pool, you had to walk, go to get the bus or…not very often when it wasn’t stormy, you could walk and take a Skyliner or a gondola.  But Pillow Pet could really only experience this through our eyes and through our recaps, ‘cause Pillow Pet’s role as a plush is a comforter, and as a pillow, really, as a snuggable pillow.

 

One of the big advantages of being a Pillow Pet…oh, what’s a Pillow Pet?  I guess that’s…I described it.  It’s a pillow, it’s a plush, it’s a Pillow Pet, but this one, this particular Pillow Pet was also named Pillow Pet.  It didn’t even have a shortened name; it was just Pillow Pet.  Never P.P. or Pillow Pet or Pet or Pillow.  Pillow Pet.  Where’s my Pillow Pet?  Where’s Pillow Pet?  Make room for Pillow Pet.  So, Pillow Pet, with the other plushes and everything that I would stuff in my pockets all day long and have to empty out would be at the hotel room all day long.  Pillow Pet would also be in bed most of the time.  These particular rooms had full-sized beds, which made for quite a comfortable…if you were sharing a room with more…multiple people, you say…you had one adult in one full bed and then an adult who makes a sleep podcast and their kid in another full bed, and Pillow Pet.

 

It was quite a…it was quite the scene, man.  A lot of tossing, turning, mind racing, trouble…tossing, turning, temperature impossible to regulate.  Pillow Pet was there to witness all these things, but we wouldn’t be telling you this story, even for a sleep podcast, if that was all there was to it.  ‘Cause there was another couple elements to this thing, one of which is that it was…I don’t know what they call it, adjusted housekeeping, which is totally understandable in that particular…this particular resort and Disney resorts.  They do try to…even before changes in the world, they tried to get you to do this anyway.  I’m sure they had a lot of people with a lot of experience in spreadsheets and very great educations who said, how much do you think…how much does it cost to clean a room?  Like, total cost?

 

What do you think is the least we can offer retail to a guest, even though…and then, what are our costs to get them to not clean the room every day, or not at all?  I don’t know when they started doing this.  I know that the first time my daughter and I made a father-daughter trip, maybe it was ‘17 or ‘18…2017, 2018.  They said hey, we’ll pay…we’ll give you, whatever, five bucks a night or ten…maybe it was even ten bucks a night, or maybe it was just fifty bucks total to not clean your room at all.  You could get towels, but we’re not gonna clean your room.  We’re gonna look in there, but we’re not gonna clean anything, or we’ll only clean it once every four days.  I don’t know what the arrangement was.  I believe that one time I said yes, and then after that I said no, because…I said well, probably better off having it cleaned every once in a while.

 

This particular trip, it happened to be some other kind of modified, where once every three days or every other day, they would change the bedding, and once…or maybe…or once every three days they would clean your room, or something like that.  It wasn’t ever spelled out, or if it was, I wasn’t listening.  But so, we did get used to…which is totally legitimate…well, if it was another hotel, I’d say, it’s totally legitimate.  But with this particular company, I feel like they’re stretching things a little too far.  But anyway, not important because what’s important is that Pillow Pet got used to just being left in the sheets, and if you share a bed with old Scoots, one, you’re gonna need multiple blankets while he has a sheet, ‘cause he wants the room to be cold.

 

He’s probably gonna want his own top sheet, and that’s all he’s gonna sleep with.  So, your bedding gets…and he does a lot of tossing and turning, so you’re gonna be caught up in those sheets and stuff.  But still, you are a Pillow Pet; you do have some weight and stuff, and normally you would get…if someone came to clean the room, you’d easily be discovered as they were separating things.  But this was a unique time in history and everybody was under a little bit of extra distraction or new to their position or they had to do…more was being asked of them than…by giant corporations than probably was fair.  So, this is where the tale of Pillow Pet starts.  It’s like, one day, there Pillow Pet was.

 

I told this story kind of already once…soothe, ‘cause…oh, well…oh, I guess I could finish it from our perspective before I tell Pillow Pet’s side of the story.  So, I think what happened is you came back to the room, beds were made, and maybe…and I’m sorry about this, Pillow Pet, if you’re listening; I’m not sure your absence was immediately detected, or if it was, it became…anybody seen Pillow Pet?  No.  Pillow Pet will turn up, though.  ‘Cause the other thing about Scooter and also his daughter and…if also sharing a room, even if you’re sharing a room with another family member that may be more organized, Scooter’s not.  If he’s in his hotel room for three days, any table surface is gonna be covered with receipts, podcasting equipment, knick-knacks, and change.

 

A bit chaotic, which is also a condition for losing a Pillow Pet, because you say well, in all this chaos, yeah, you’re right, Pillow Pet might be under a suitcase or clothes that are cleaned, ‘cause Scooter likes to do a lot of laundry.  He doesn’t like to bring a lot of clothes.  So, at the time, it wasn’t that important.  But then it was check-out time, and oh boy, during check-out time, did we look, and we couldn’t find old Pillow Pet.  Oh boy, was that a moment where we…usually we…Scooter particularly likes to start to organize his room a day before check-out, or start to pack slowly, because it’s too strenuous undoing the chaos.  He likes to do it in stages, not the morning of check-out or late at night the night before.  Neither one of those, he’s learned, makes him comfortable.

 

So, he likes to do it the morning before the morning of check-out.  Maybe say okay, I’m gonna pack this suitcase up at least, or I’m gonna start to organize this, maybe even…so, he hits peak chaos right in the middle of a vacation and then tries to retract.  Other people have their own ways of dealing with it, you know?  But just to say that Pillow Pet was not discovered.  Under the beds?  No Pillow Pet.  In the suitcases?  No Pillow Pet.  No Pillow Pet at all.  So, Scooter went down to the main lobby which was quite a walk that he loved to do, and he said to the people at the lobby, Pillow Pet is missing.  Or maybe he called.  They said okay, well, there’s two things you could fill out, two separate forms; one for laundry and one for lost and found, and we’ll automatically e-mail you.

 

Just tell us…so, we filled out those forms and said we’re missing a Pillow Pet.  It goes by the name of Pillow Pet.  This is what the Pillow Pet looks like, this is a link to where you could find this Pillow Pet, and yeah, that’s what we’re trying to find, is our lost Pillow Pet.  But that’s not where the…well, and to kinda say well, Pillow Pet was never found.  But I…just recently…and other things were going on, and someone said I really miss Pillow Pet.  I might be a teen now, I might be tough on the outside, I might be resilient on the inside, but I still have a heart, and a part of my heart hurts because Pillow Pet’s not in my life anymore.  I said, I understand.  It makes perfect sense.  Let’s write an ode first to Pillow Pet, or just do some…you type…not like an ode, but where you kinda wail.  You say oh, Pillow Pet, where are you?

 

Oh, we miss you.  You just make some pronouncement and you vocalize your strong feelings.  That’s one thing we really do, and that really does help you at least vocalize your strong feelings, and wail.  Is that what I said?  Wail; you really wail.  Oh, Pillow Pet, oh…but then once you get some wailing in and then you feel that attachment you still have…even I, who took Pillow Pet for granted most of the time…never had a resentment with Pillow Pet, though.  Maybe there was a moment or two in…maybe, but I don’t recall.  But I mean, probably…if you’re with me, there’s always 100% chance there was at least one moment where I said Pillow Pet, you’re slowing us down.  So, I’m sorry about that, too.  But I had to think about things from Pillow Pet’s perspective.  I thought about it and I said well, there’s Pillow Pet.

 

Oh, you want to take…?  Yeah, so, there I was, just a Pillow Pet.  I had gone into what I…you would call a hibernating mode, both a way for us to extend our lifespan and cope.  So…’cause you say, don’t you feel lonely?  I say no, we go into a hibernation mode, so we don’t actually get lonely.  We’re lonely for a few moments when hibernation turns off, before we’ve connected with our child.  But otherwise, we go into a normal hibernation state.  So, I was hibernating.  I was in a pile of sheets and a comforter, and the spare hotel blanket and a spare sheet and a pillow.  I was comfortable; I was in hibernation mode where I just get to a…I just am in a state of shut down, more or less.  I heard the door open.  I had been through this before, actually, hundreds of times.  Maybe not hundreds of times, but figuratively, at least.

 

A lovely person came in to change the bedding around, and this particular style of hotels, or any hotel in a tourist area based with children, a lot of times I get placed on the night stand with the other plushes.  We come out of hibernation ‘cause…say, this person’s really nice; they’re humming a tune, they’re making the most of things, and they’re just changing the bedding and the towels only, because it’s a modified schedule.  But this particular time, I don’t know what it was.  I think it was just that I was caught…really caught up in the sheets, really a lot of tossing and turning, plus two sets of top sheets because of the Scooter temperature situation.  Not that that was anyone’s fault.  It was a con…a bunch of events coming together.  But I got wrapped up and I got tossed in a…kind of like a sack at first, with the pillow cases.

 

Oh, maybe it was a pillow case I was in.  It must have been.  I didn’t even realize it ‘til now.  I was in there with the sheets and the pillow cases, and then I got tossed into a bin.  Now I know it was a turquoise bin with other pillow cases and towels and sheets.  I went into light hibernation mode there because I said well, this has never happened before.  But I’m sure it’ll turn out just fine.  That’s the good thing about hibernation mode; people talk about resiliency.  Hibernation mode makes you say okay, well, I have a way to cope with this.  It’s outside of my comfort zone.  Don’t know where I’m going.  I’ll be observing things, but my limbic system, for…to use your parlance, will be shut down, so I won’t be in a mode of worrying about what’s gonna happen.

 

Another thing you need to know…anticipating what’s happening next, is that I’ve been washed before in a washing machine.  But for a while, I sat in this bin, then I felt the bin being pushed by the same person because I could hear their beautiful humming.  I felt them push me somewhere, then I heard them having a conversation with someone else.  I heard the sounds of an engine or a motor, and then I heard clink, clank, clank, clank, and I felt…it’s just like a train being assembled on times I’ve watched television.  I’ve watched a lot of television, obviously.  I’ll come…you leave the TV on, I’ll come right out of hibernation mode, even if I’m alone.  Really isn’t that different at thing.

 

But so, what I was assuming was there was a train of these bins being assembled, and then I felt us moving and I heard the engine of something I had seen and I would see again, which was a cart.  Maybe they call it a golf cart or a Cushman cart…a utility cart, but then we started moving.  I said well, we’re moving.  I did shout around to see if there was any other plush stuffed animals that I knew; Princess the dalmatian or polar bear, but no, neither one answered my call.  But I said okay, it’s fine.  I know I’m with all the bedding.  Bedding doesn’t have much to say because it…they…if bedding could talk, you wouldn’t want to know, so that’s why bedding doesn’t really…particularly hotel bedding, but even general bedding, they have nothing to say.

 

Even if you did say it, they say well, even if I had something to say, it’s none of your business.  So, because there’s a very…it’s a different relationship.  Bedding is right up…it knows everything.  I think it feels your dreams.  But the thing about bedding is it’s not…the…it doesn’t have anything to say, good or bad, which…it’s there with you.  I guess when humans use the word compassion, bedding is something like that.  It’s there through your good times and your bad times, through the times your back sweats because you got a coldy-cold and because your back’s sweating; oh boy, is it sweating.  Or maybe you’re sweating in a dream, or something else.  Or you’re dreaming about something good, something bad, your bedding’s there with you.  So, I was enveloped in the same bedding, and I felt the bedding saying hey, we see you’re in a light hibernation mode, so…it was feeling that with me.

 

Maybe ‘cause I’m made of the same materials, I understood better than humans might, that I say oh, this is here with me.  It’s experiencing it with me, and that brought me comfort.  The bedding did talk a little bit; said you know, we’re going to the laundry.  I said well, thanks for letting me know.  I said, like a washing machine?  It said yeah, but it’s an industrial laundry.  Did you get separated from your family?  Yeah, apparently I did.  What’s an industrial laundry?  Well, it’s just a big…big washing machines.  The good news is, this particular hotel has it onsite.  I’ve been at other hotels, you gotta go to a central location and then you get distributed.  But I’m sure that you’ll be separated out when they separate the towels and the sheets and the blankets and the pillow cases.  They’ll discover you and you’ll be fine.

 

I said okay, great, great stuff.  Eventually we reached our location and we were…we sat for a while, but not too long because we were…we needed to be cleaned ‘cause you can’t leave laundry sitting around.  Anybody knows that.  We got the…I went into kinda hibernation mode because I didn’t want to…I just…I guess it naturally happened.  Maybe part of me didn’t want to know what was gonna happen with the separation.  I said, once I’m separated I’ll click back in when I feel that human touch, or nearby.  But I felt myself go into the washing machine and it was much bigger than I expected.  Really warm, nice.  I felt totally disinfected; holy cow.  Then I was dried, and I still was not identified somehow.  I was dried with a bunch of towels.  I don’t know, maybe they thought…I don’t know.

 

Maybe I was still caught in a towel; that…I was hibernated for that.  Then we came out and we were separated ‘til I think where we would…the towels would be…I don’t know if they would get ironed or pressed and folded, but I felt myself in a big stack of towels.  The towels were telling me about the pressing, and they said well, you’re not as thin as us, so you’ll definitely get discovered before you get pressed.  I said well, I’m not really into being pressed; I’m a Pillow Pet.  They said well, maybe you could make a move or something.  I said yeah, that’s probably for the best.  So, I slowly started to make my way up through the towels, and I was still in another…yet another bin.  I got to the top of the bin and I said, well…then I start…heard people moving around, so I said, I’ll just lie at the top of the bin.

 

Then someone came and they moved the bin, and then someone came by and they saw me, and they put me on the top of a dryer or something.  It was dusty up there and I didn’t really like that ‘cause I was clean.  I didn’t like…now, the dust was laundry dust, so in some sense it was clean dust.  I realized that as I brushed it off me.  ‘Cause then the lights went out; it must have been the end of the shift.  The laundry…the people in the laundry always joke; the laundry’s always going.  Laundry waits for no one.  That’s some of the jokes I heard.  But I also…because I’m a Pillow Pet and not a person, I don’t really have a sense of time, and I don’t have a sense of regret, either.  If I was a human, I’d say well, if I would have just stayed there, maybe somebody would have found me.

 

Maybe they would have filled out the proper report or checked to see if there was a missing Pillow Pet.  They would have known I was a Pillow Pet or they would have been so invested, they would have looked, and then they would have returned me to my family.  But I don’t have a set of…sense of regret because…you can’t have one if you’re a Pillow Pet because you’re where you are.  You always are where you’re supposed to be.  It’s programmed into our…I don’t know, our sense of being, because otherwise you’d say…let’s just say, ‘cause I’ve watched a lot of TV and I’ve seen a lot now that I’ve been on my own.  You say, you go home with a kid and you had imagined you were gonna be with a different kid.  Then you say well, I’m not so sure about this kid.

 

I don’t like the way…I want to go to a tea party; I don’t want to go to a Pillow Pet-as-a-Frisbee party.  I want to be used as a pillow and not as a…in the crook of the kid’s arm.  You’re not where you are; you’re somewhere else, and it’s impinging on what you’re there to do, which is just to be you, a Pillow Pet.  That’s all you gotta do, is just be you and be there and be present.  The kid or the adult, the person will take the lead.  Sure, there’s things like…that I would say are not okay, but we’re not send…we’re not…we don’t have…we can’t just say, don’t wipe…if you have a runny nose, use a tissue, for the love of all Pillow Pets in the world.  We don’t have that option, either.  Not that I’ve experienced that, but I’ve seen it now.

 

Now, maybe there was something that happened, because like I said, we’re not supposed to be able to just walk around, but I don’t know, maybe there was something…there must have been something in that clean laundry dust you know, because I started to say well, I’m not gonna lie here, and I don’t know…so, if I had a sense of regret, I wouldn’t have moved, but if I…I guess some sort of change had taken place in me where I was changed from being this passive Pillow Pet to a active Pillow Pet.  I guess I couldn’t be…I couldn’t just lie around and hope that I would end up in the right place anymore.  I think part of me is a realist, because people I was with, they were kinda realists.  They would have said, how much time passed?  How much time was on the vacation?

 

Maybe it would have made me feel a little down, but it also would have said, it’s…the time probably passed.  They definitely looked for you.  I could feel that; I could feel their love, but they couldn’t find you.  They don’t even…they didn’t even know that there was a on…happened to be a onsite laundry here.  It’s not publicly accessible anyway, so…and they called and they got told to just fill out this form at this website, or maybe it got e-mailed to them, whatever it was.  So, I didn’t have…so, whatever; I got down off that laundry.  It just happened to be those few hours when the laundry was silent.  I did say to myself a few things that carried me forward, and I think it was the advice of the laundry.  I said okay, I think I’m gonna be a nocturnal Pillow Pet, because from what I know about vacations and stuff, especially this place, it’s pretty busy during the day.

 

So, I set out and what I learned is that yeah, it was the middle of the night.  I snuck out of the laundry.  It wasn’t hard at all.  There was a door and I…well, it was hard, but not for me because I…Pillow Pet persistence.  The persistence of Pillow Pets.  First I had to jump off something; jumped on the handle of the door and it opened, ‘cause it was one of those handles with…not a round handle.  I exited the laundry and I found myself in a car…road with a ton of carts, and those cars that drive the carts.  I said okay, this is how I came in, and this is how all the laundry moves.  The first thing I did was retrace my steps.  Now, I was quite far away ‘cause I was on the central building where the food is and the check-in.  I think they call it Old Port Royale.

 

So, I walked through there, and the good thing about being a Pillow Pet and nocturnal is one, hard to see you.  Two, I don’t know, I got pretty good at being stealthy, and because of my coloring, I just happened to be somewhat…if it’s nighttime, somewhat camouflaged.  During the day I would probably look like some sort of cat walking around, or a Pillow Pet, but at night, especially in the…I kept to the bushes and the stuff.  So, I went through…alongside the food building, Old Port Royale.  I could see cobblestones and indoor and outdoor tables.  Then I went along a boardwalk and I said okay, I think…I was…remember listening to all the conversations in the hotel room and even looking at some of the stuff on the tables.  When they were walking through their day, they were holding me.

 

I was in bed with them.  Luckily they use a lot of this for material for their podcast and stuff, so I said, I gotta get to Trinidad North.  I know that much.  So, I did see a map.  I said okay, okay, I think I know how to get there.  I think I know how to read a map.  So, I headed…I want…I knew I wanted to head towards the water and then make a left.  So yeah, I headed…started…went from this cobblestone to this boardwalk which went around a restaurant, and then I took a left, and there it was; the water on my right.  The moon was on the water there, and I headed on the boardwalk.  Then there was a bridge to an island.  Now, the bridge was closed; there was a gate across it.  It said Castaway Key, open from whatever, dawn ‘til dusk or something like that.  I said okay, well, that’s closed.  Interesting.

 

So, I proceeded to walk a little further.  Then I saw the pool.  I think the pool had a name, and there was actually…the lights were still on.  No one was there.  But so, the pool was calm.  It had fake cannons that water was dribbling out of, and it looked like a old…some sort of old type fort or castle.  Then I’ll be honest with you; I said to myself, what would my humans want me to do?  ‘Cause there’s a water slide.  I said, go down that water slide.  Then I said, I think I can swim.  Then I said well, I’m made…maybe I should do this later.  Then I said no, Pillow Pets…let’s be in the now, man.  So then I saw that they had all these life preservers, and they had one for toddlers, so I grabbed one of those and I went up the stairs, ‘cause it was easy for me to go through the fence to get to the pool.

 

I had to walk around the pool, the far side of the pool.  Got the preserver, and I said I know I can’t wear this, but I could use it as a boat or a float.  I’ll use it…I’ll hold…I’ll go on my stomach, I’ll hold this…anyway, I’ll explain it to you.  So, I went up the stairs.  That took a long time ‘cause I had to drag the life preserver behind me, or jacket.  I got to the top.  Now, I knew there was no water running in the slide, which was good, because I’m soft.  So, I practiced at the top of the slide.  I said okay, I’ll ride down on my back and then right towards the end, I’ll put the life jacket down in front of me and that’ll stop my momentum.  I’ll fall forward onto the life jacket and then go off and I’ll land on my stomach on the life jacket as a boat.  If I hold on, then I should just be able to paddle and then only my hands will get wet, and I can get out of the pool.

 

I said, there’s multiple places…there’s a couple stairways that I could try to get on a pool, but it had one of those zero-entry things, so worst case, I could paddle all the way to the other end of the pool and get out.  Probably will be pretty tired.  That ended up being the case; I went down the water slide and it was so, so fun.  Oh boy, so fun I…it’s one of my traditions now.  Do it almost every night.  So, if you do ever see a Pillow Pet going down a water slide, it might be me, but it might not.  Maybe there’s other Pillow Pets listening now.  Hug your human close.  Even if you do adventures like this, you’ll miss them.  But this time I just did one water slide, but I was tired because I had to go all the way to the other end of the pool where the zero-entry where you could just walk in.  Then I got out of the pool.

 

I did leave the vest in the water because I was so tired, plus I wanted to step on it, so again, I didn’t get too wet.  I was very, very tired, so what I did was I went…I exited the pool again.  I was on a boardwalk and I knew again I have to go left, but I’d have to walk very, very far.  But the good thing is about one of my humans, the older one, he always is talking about his dream of hiding out in places and living in places.  So, I had heard him say one night that about halfway between where their room was and Port Royale, where the pool was, there was a bridge.  On either side of the bridge was a lot of bushes and different greenery.  He had said you know, I wonder if you could…if I could…maybe I’ll live there for a few days, down in those bushes.  I think he always wanted to be a nocturnal resident of this place.

 

So, now in some sense, I was getting to fulfill his dream.  I said okay, I’ll…I can make it there.  So, one step after another.  First, my steps were squishy, but it was a hot, hot night.  So, eventually…and it was…just happened to be one of those dry, hot nights.  This place is notoriously…gets very…but now I’ve learned how to deal with that.  It gets notoriously humid because…spoiler alert, I learned that living outside’s not for me because of the humidity.  So, I do live inside now.  Usually I live in a room that no one’s in, and I have a couple hiding spots just in case the room got…it didn’t seem like it was rented, but it is.  I can get under up underneath the bed, but up as…high enough that someone would have to go underneath the bed and look up to see me.

 

But this particular night, what I did was went to this bridge that went over the canal lake.  Actually it was cool, ‘cause the gondolas were running.  They must have been practicing or something, and it made these cool, silent…almost sounds of…and there was a couple different ones and they were all moving.  So, I got in these bushes that surrounded the base of this bridge.  I got comfortable there, and I fell asleep just as the sun was coming up, and there, I went into hibernation.  I stayed there the whole day.  Now, it was very warm and it did start to get humid, but then I got up around 2:00 in the morning, I’d say, once I stopped hearing anything.  There are still people up moving at that time, but like I said, I’m more or less invisible.

 

I got up and I went under the bridge ‘cause there was a walking path, and then went up under the bridge again.  I realized that the human, he had said, was halfway, but he was totally wrong because after you come up under the bridge, there’s a path that still goes along the water, right?  That’s where you go from one of the places to Trinidad North or South, or maybe…I don’t know.  Then you go along the path and there’s some benches.  If you go left, parallel to the road, you go to the parking lots.  But if you keep going, then there’s more benches and garbage cans, and I knew the garbage can was my marker, that it was the room closest to the garbage can, because the human, he said what a jackpot; we got a room close to a outside garbage can.

 

So, we could throw our garbage outside, like if you had leftovers or something weird.  He just loved…I don’t know, there was something that brought him happiness about that, so he was really happy.  So, I kept going, and the first thing I noticed was the lights were out in the room, but I also knew that it wasn’t a good idea to bug any humans.  The other problem I had though was that…well, that I did…there’s not very good coverage there for me to hide.  So, I didn’t know what to do.  I was a bit torn.  It was 3:00, 4:00 in the morning.  The lights were out; I couldn’t tell if anybody was in the room or not, if they were there, and I didn’t want to be discovered if it wasn’t them.  I mean, the realist in me said it’s probably been a week, so you’re probably not gonna find them.  But so, what I did do is I said okay, what am I gonna do?

 

Where am I gonna go?  None of these bushes here are gonna be able to keep me hidden during the day.  I tried to go in the vent for the air conditioning, but it felt wet and too cold and not a good idea.  I said okay, well, huh.  This is quite a conundrum here.  Where, oh where could a Pillow Pet lay low but also have a view of the room?  Then I remembered oh, the garbage can, ‘cause the garbage can had a top.  I said wait a second, I could probably…it had a raised top like a roof, so the rain couldn’t get in the garbage can but that you could throw stuff in.  I said well, it won’t be the most comfortable place for me to go.  If I could wedge myself in the top of the garbage can, people would still throw garbage in below me.  Nobody’s gonna look in the top of the garbage can unless someone comes to change it.

 

Maybe even then they wouldn’t look in it, ‘cause it had a door.  I said, maybe that’s a good place.  I said, I can still…I have a line of sight to the door.  So, I lied there.  I eventually got in there.  Now, oh boy, not a good idea.  Luckily, my system’s much different than a mammal’s because it was really warm during the day there.  It did happen to rain a lot of the day, but when the sun was out, I didn’t like it one bit.  I watched that room and I watched it for two days, I’ll be honest with you, ‘cause I’m a little bit stubborn, just like my humans.  But I didn’t see them; the door never opened or closed.  I had on light hibernation, so any time I heard a noise, I came out of hibernation.  No one came in and out of that room.  Turned out, it wasn’t rented.  I said to myself okay, Pillow Pet, this is what it is.  This is what it is.

 

Let’s go on the water slide and let’s be where we are.  I just said, I guess it’s time to…what would they want?  They’d want me to be where I am, too.  How can I love my family the best, is to start living my new life.  I also knew, yeah, the humans, they…I’ve seen the human that does the podcast struggle with feeling like oh, that’s too…maybe I just need to lie down, or I wish I could just lie down and let it all…it’s all too much.  This is too…I said yeah, I feel a little bit like that too, but what an opportunity.  So, the first thing I did was go down the water slide.  Then I said my human would want me to drink soda.  What could be more human than drinking soda?  Now, I had to think exactly like my human would because the soda machines, you need some sort of microchip to make them work.

 

Now, they are on even when the place is closed down for the night, so what I did was I said okay, so my human…I think he’s even…said to one of his siblings, don’t just throw your cups away when you’re leaving.  They said well, we don’t need them.  So, I found a place where a lot of the stuff got thrown away.  I found a lot of those cups and I…eventually it took me a while to break the bottom of the cup open to find that there was a microchip in those cups.  Then I actually found a…long story, but this is progress; there’s a gift shop, there’s a sewing kit in the gift shop.  There was actually free giveaway ones.  So, I got a sewing kit.  I opened up one of my paws, put the microchip in my paw, sewed it back up.  But first I tested it to make sure it’d work.  It was good for like, six months or something.

 

So then I got…when I tested it…this is what I do now; sometimes I like to take an ice bath just for fun.  I say wee, wee, wee, I just press the ice and it comes over me.  A couple times I’ve heard people were working.  They said, what was that ice noise or whatever, and I’ve had to hide.  But it’s pretty easy to hide behind the machines.  Because I’ve been so mobile, I’ve been getting faster and faster.  It turns out, unlimited soda for a Pillow Pet is not a great example because I can eat anything I want, more or less.  I mean, I eat a lot of uncompleted, unfinished human food, and I can drink sparkling water.  But yeah, now I put my paw down, pick my soda, and…well, I did have to add this thing from…that I got from the gift shop that you can use like a touch pen to one of my fingertips so I could use the touch screen.

 

But yeah, I drink soda, I say okay, let me try that, little cherry whatever.  Then I started going out to the…I’ve explored the Castaway Key; it had a playground.  I went on the slides.  I actually think I prefer this playground slide towards the end of the night, because I don’t have to worry about water or a life vest or whatever.  I did think about putting the life vest on my inside, but then my outside would still get wet.  I can take a bath at the laundry any time I want.  I figured out how to do all that.  There’s actually a smaller laundry that…with regular machines.  I figured out…I hacked that thing.  Took me a while to learn that.  I had to go on the internet in somebody’s office, but I figured out how to do that.

 

Yeah, I mean, that’s all that’s going on with me for now, and then I’ll go into a room…I actually go and I check the computer.  I say okay, that room’s not gonna be rented.  It’s out of inventory, or something they call it.  For the most part, that’s pretty good.  I get into bed, I get comfortable.  I’ll be under the covers or I’ll sleep under the bed.  But I’m just beginning my adventures, I think.  I’m excited to start…be where I am right now, which is getting comfortable, because it’s just about 7:00 AM and I’m about to go to sleep.  So, I’m getting comfortable here.  I’m snuggled in a room, and I’m relaxed and I’m thinking of the love my family sends me, and I’m sending it to them.  I’m feeling the compassion holding of my bedding right now as I, Pillow Pet, go off to sleep.  Goodnight.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

(www.leahtranscribes.com)

Notable Language:

• Close Bed Proximities (CBPs)
• Hibernation Mode
• Castaway Key currently Closed

Notable Culture:

• 101 Dalmatians
• Pillow Pet
• The Borrowers

Notable Talking Points:

• Lying on the floor next to Koa with my legs up on the bed
• Undoing the chaos in stages
• How can I love my family the best? Start living my new life