My dad travels with pillows. Not a “travel pillow” in the shape of a puffy half-eaten donut, but an actual rectangular, goose-down accoutrement upon which to lay your entire head. He will forgo the carry-on bag in lieu of his pillow because he doesn’t trust that the hotel, even the Hilton, will have one that meets his standards, and at his age, he doesn’t have time to waste six hours of precious vacation time on uncomfortable sleep.

I’ve always thought this was a little prima donna-ish of him, especially for a man who lives in tank tops, drives a backhoe and goes to the movies just for the hot dogs. But after sleeping on a couch and lying my head on a pancake of a throw pillow recently, I’m starting to understand. 

Nothing beats your own bed. 

My bed is what motivates me to spend $25 on a cab ride to get home when I could very well sleep off my drunk for free on the couch of a friend—a point when I would, without a doubt, fall immediately into a comatose-like slumber and care less about where I rolled around in a puddle of my own drool. But even in my most drunken of states, my bed is all I can hyper-focus on, and even sounds better than a grilled cheese sandwich and side of fries at that hour. 

I’ve always been the type of friend that gave up my bed for visitors. What does it matter where I sleep, I’d say, sleep is sleep! But after being so generous recently, I’m reneging on any future offers I may make to be such a good host. (Because I will make such an offer again, because I am such a goddamn pleaser. And most likely I’ll do so when I’m drunk and brimming with empty promises.) So as written, sober evidence that I can later refer to, I’m typing now: “Screw you guys!” I’m not going to be that close—a room away, on a couch that’s a half a foot shorter than the length of my body—to the one thing that motivates to make it to the end of the day, the thing that I have faith in even when I don’t even have the strength to get off my bar stool, and not let it envelop me with its majesty.