"Eliza, before you get too involved with me, you'll need to know a few things about the pillows that I sell and about my past. Having been raised a good Catholic, I was taught to believe that confession will help the salvation of my soul. I can't really talk to a priest because he might think that what I have done is so bad that he'd turn me over to the authorities.First, let me tell you about the pillows I sell. I used to buy fairly good pillows from wholesalers. But my credit got worse and worse, and so I had to improvise. If you notice, I always ask the customer for their old pillows. The truth be told, the problem with most pillows is that they haven't been adequately fluffed. I take the old pillows, rid them of their casings, dump the feathers into a heavy duty garbage bag, and viola, I have the makings of a new pillow. Pre-owned, as the car salesmen like to say.
I take the feathers and fill them into a pillow bag, as the industry calls them. Then I whip out that little sewing machine I have in my trunk and sew the seams together. I attach a look-alike label to the brand the Neiman-Marcus sells, and my total cost is never more than a couple of bucks a pillow.
You might think I'm sleazy doing this. I would understand that, but before you jump to any conclusions, please listen to why I believe that I make the world a much better place for all my customers.
As the Buddha discovered, people suffer. He was off-base thinking that the source of suffering was that they did not know their essential self. They suffer because they don't get any comfort at night. And I can alleviate that suffering by selling them a comfortable fluffed pillow.
Now you might wonder why I don't sell the pillows for ten dollars rather than one hundred and forty-nine dollars. We tend to enjoy quality things. And to the novice, there is little difference between quality and expensive. So I make it expensive and they love it.
Eliza, before I go on with the second story, I want to be sure that you are still with me, and that you want to join my missionary, so to speak, and give comfort to the multitudes that suffer so severely."
