Saturday, August 23, 2014

A Whole New Meaning of "Pillow-pet"

Ever heard the term "pillow-pet?" I know that I have. In case you haven't, a pillow-pet is a toy that resembles a stuffed animal, but doubles as a  pillow due to the way it's made. The animal's body is shaped like a very fuzzy pillow, but there's a strap that Velcros the two narrower sides together to make a vague animal shape. The whole thing generally has a head in the center of one side of the wide part of the pillow-pet, and a tail opposite. All in all, it's a security blanket/ stuffed animal that's also a pillow. Very efficient for camping trips.

Now that we've broken down what a pillow-pet is, I would like to asses the terms "pillow" and "pet" to further understand the meaning of this. As we all know, a pillow is a sort of cushion, usually covered in a washable cloth. A pillow is used to rest one's head or sometimes body upon, to enhance comfort while resting or sleeping. A pet is the term commonly used for a nonhuman animal that lives with humans. Now, that's the politically correct version that isn't anthropocentric. Most humans would say that a pet is an animal that belongs to a person. Now, consider a cat's point of view. Cats often act like they're the people, and the humans who live with them are their servants/pets/inferiors about half of the time, and loved family members the other half. Therefore, cats look at humans like we are the pets. If you live with a cat, I'd like you to think about how many times you've had a cat on your lap. Wouldn't you say that, for a cat, you are a pillow in that instance? Maybe the real pillow-pets are none other than us!