Those Asians! Is there anything they CAN'T do?

Considering how many Amazing Miracle Products were first "discovered" by people living in China thousands of years ago, it is truly astonishing that we aren't all speaking Chinese and eating diets rich in rice, fish and veggies (too bad, too.)

This commercial for an "Air Bead" Pillow even features an Asian-looking girl wearing flowered pajamas contentedly settling her pretty little head down for what we know will be yet another peaceful, uninterrupted night of comfortable rest. Meanwhile, we in the Un-Enlightened Western World are still putting our ridiculously heavy (ten pounds! Who knew?) rock heads on worthless, fluffy and ultimately crippling Not-Beaded pillows! What is the matter with us?

I mean, do we LIKE waking up in INCREDIBLE pain, starting our day by sharing our agony with our spouses (who wake up simultaneously, with the same complaint)? How are we to remain The Most Productive Work Force on the Planet if we can't get a decent night's sleep?

Thank goodness we've been clued in to the miracle of the buckwheat pillow. Yet, even though I'm pretty sure Buckwheat is plentiful, this pillow isn't filled with the stuff. Instead it features Air Beads, which I guess is as close to Synthetic Buckwheat as we can get. These "Air Beads" allow the pillow to adjust to our obese noggins and eliminate the roughly 6-7 hours per night we spend punching our traditional Inferior Western-style pillows.

Can I tell you how much I love the Glass Tubes and Eggs demonstration? It's not that we get to watch a 10-lb weight crush eggs not once, not twice, but three times (it left me wishing that pillows were filled with many other different substances- I did not want this part of the commercial to end, truly.) It's more the guy in the white lab coat who is conducting this "demonstration"- he really looks like a serious engineering student, not even cracking the hint of a smile as he performs what he must realize is an ABSURDLY STUPID ACT- THREE TIMES!! I mean, he's wearing a white lab coat! And are those glasses, or safety goggles? (Shattered eggshells have caused blindness in lab rats attempting this experiment at home, you know!)

And can I tell you how much I love the fact that the claim I made in my last post for "High-Definition Aviators" is reinforced here? If you order your Air Bead Pillow right now, you can get a pillow case for no extra charge- "just pay extra shipping and processing." How much do you think it costs to ship a pillow case? How much do you think these guys charge?

Anyway, this is yet another commercial which makes me smile more than it makes me frown. I really hope this isn't a trend. My guess is that there's a truly horrible cell phone ad coming up very shortly which will bring this streak to an abrupt end, and I'll be back to my usual cynical crabbiness. And life will go back to normal.

Until then- I really think these guys made a mistake of not just using buckwheat as the filler for this pillow. Then they could REALLY claim an ancient Asian connection for this product.

Unless the Air Beads are what I think they are- crushed packing peanuts. 'Cause I imagine they are really cheap, and only slightly louder than a bag of buckwheat.