LOG PILLOW
My bookstore sells log pillows. The whimsical, novelty log pillows.
![Two brown-bark-patterned pillows shaped like logs in a red wooden box.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F035e3895-9fc9-4b3d-8f6a-fc83faf281db.heic)
They are stacked in a pile, like actual logs. They are the size of a log, but are soft and made of polyester. As they are on the floor, children make a beeline for them, grabbing them, smashing the log pillows into their faces. They tumble to the floor from their stack. They are admired but rarely committed to. Log pillows are the store product you develop a brief, fleeting affair with, mostly in your mind before you walk away and forget all about them by the time you get to your car.
The party we have to blame for these log pillows is none other than one of my favorite novelists, Ann Patchett. Our sidelines buyer saw Ann promoting these novelty pillows and ordered a bunch, as they were incredibly popular at Ann’s store, Parnassus Books in Nashville. At Parnassus, the log pillows come in three different bark profiles, and the standard brown one is sold out on their website!
I’ll be honest. I don’t like the log pillows.
THEY DON’T SELL. They’re $29.99 and that’s a lot of dough—why would you choose not to spend that on A BOOK? Sure, maybe you hate books (a few people who hate books do cross our threshold every now and again) and maybe you’d rather have a pillow shaped like a log? And you’d rather have that than a really interesting book? I don’t know…I like books to the detriment of, like, everything else so I don’t get that.
INSTIGATOR OF CHILD-ADULT CONFLICT. Most of the time, it’s a kid running full-speed into the log pillow pile wanting their parent to buy them one and an adult telling the kid no and an ensuing maelstrom. I bear witness to plenty of child-being-told-no meltdowns at my job, but the log pillows seem to be baiting children into these situations.
I’M NOT INTO SILLY HOME DECOR. You may think they’re wonderful. Feel free to disagree all you want and festoon your home with fake logs.
THE ONE POSITIVE THING, IN MY OPINION, ABOUT THE LOG PILLOWS
You can use the log pillow as a prop for your Log Lady Halloween costume.
You have to have sidelines at a bookstore. Sidelines are non-book items that are usually gift items, fun, whimsical, and bought on impulse. They help pay the rent and keep the staff in paychecks, as they usually have a pretty large profit margin on them. Our store tends to run low on sidelines. We sell some nice art supplies, like fancy pens and sketchbooks, Leuchtturm and Moleskine premium notebooks, and really cute stickers. Very tasteful. We don’t, for example, sell keychains in the shape of a bikini. We’re not a gift shop on Waikiki Beach, where that is more appropriate.
Yesterday at work, I looked up how many log pillows have sold, as the stack was looking smaller than usual. The number was nine. For a long time, it was zero, and then for a while it was one. I guess they finally took off?
The one difference between our store and Parnassus is that most people come to us to buy books. A lot of people go to Parnassus to see Ann AND buy books AND buy the things Ann recommends.
My novel didn’t launch me into celebrity bookseller status, and that’s okay, because I can’t really fathom the kind of power one has when they can get people to buy non-book novelty items. That’s waaaaaaay too much for me. Can’t do it. The mind reels.
CLOVER LOVER
This is more of a confession, or maybe a cry for help, but a lot of the time, when I’m instructing a customer on how to use our Clover credit card machine, I feel like I’m using language that is used for giving direction during sex.
The Clover is a square screen in a white box on the counter, and you can swipe, insert the chip, or tap your card. The area where the tap sensor is located is at the top center of the screen, a placement that is parallel to the clitoris, at least in my mind. Yeah, the Clover is a vulva. The tap symbol is the clit, the slot for inserting the chip is the vagina, and I don’t know what the screen where you type in your PIN is, but there’s got to be a pervert reading this who has some ideas.
![Clover card processing machine annotated with where to tap and where to insert the chip.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e6ff8-325b-474f-b248-c1edd5302f53_1576x2100.jpeg)
THINGS I HAVE SAID TO CUSTOMERS W/R/T USING THE CLOVER:
Tap right there, on that spot.
Hit that spot right there.
Nope, up a little higher.
You can insert it.
Put it in further.
It’s not in all the way.
You don’t have to touch it, you can just hold it right there.
Did the developers of the Clover machine KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING when they placed the tap sensor and the chip insertion point? DID THEY? Because at least once a day, I FEEL DIRTY, and I wonder if the person I’m interacting with is like wow, oof, yikes, she said INSERT.
I’m not saying, before you commit to a credit card processing system, you need to make sure that the placement of its features is not in line with HUMAN GENITALIA, but this is a problem I did not foresee! And now I have PURGED MY SOUL of this burden!
Whew! Thank you for listening!
Currently reading: North Woods by Daniel Mason.
Immediately thought of a Log Lady costume when I saw them 🪵
The clover. Maybe a little too concrete, but what if the keyboard to the left is a remote control for the card, which acts as a “stimulator” (economy pun).