The pillow menu

An original comic imagined account of arriving at a hotel.

The hotel offered me a pillow menu before I had decided where to put my bag. Sleep, which had seemed a straightforward ambition on the train, now required an informed selection.

There were pillows described as firm, gentle, supportive and responsive. Several sounded better qualified for conversation than people I knew. I examined the list while my head, the intended customer, made the modest request to lie down.

The receptionist explained another option. I nodded with the alert expression I use when trying not to reveal that additional information has made a decision more difficult. Each description created a small fear of choosing the night incorrectly. Somewhere in the building, the perfect pillow was apparently waiting for a more knowledgeable version of me.

In the room, I placed the menu beside the telephone. The bed already contained two pillows. I sat on its edge to compare them, then lay back without reaching a conclusion.

When I woke, the room was dark and the menu had fallen to the carpet. One pillow was beneath my head. The other had accepted my bag without complaint.

I cannot report which qualities I selected. I can say that, for several hours, neither pillow asked me to explain myself. It was the most responsive service of the evening.

Examine the methods the writer uses to make the pillow menu seem comic and burdensome.