I finally got around to replacing my old, lifeless pillow.
Not sure why I waited so long. Turns out, pillows are pretty cheap nowadays. I got mine at Walmart for less than a six-pack of beer. And I’m pretty sure, it will last longer than a six-pack of beer.
But it came with an attached tag, the type of tag that you don’t normally see on a six-pack of beer.
Written in ALL CAPS, which is a standard way of declaring that you’re saying something of great importance.
UNDER PENALTY OF LAW THIS TAG NOT TO BE REMOVED EXCEPT BY THE CONSUMER
Then, also in ALL CAPS:
ALL NEW MATERIAL CONSISTING OF 100% POLYESTER BATTING.
The tag also noted that the manufacturer had certified that the materials in my pillow were described “in accordance with law.”
Being the consumer of this pillow, I immediately pulled out a pair of scissors when I got home, and removed the tag.
You have to let your pillow know, right from the git-go, who’s the boss, or you will be taken advantage of.
Immediately, however, I felt a pang of regret. Like I had just circumcised a newborn baby boy.
What harm was the tag doing? It was merely telling me that it consisted of all new material (100% polyester batting)… that the shell had been made in China… and that it had been filled and finished in the USA for “WAL-MART STORES, BENTONVILLE AR 72716”.
I realized that I had been incited into cutting off the tag… provoked by the suggestion that only “the Consumer” was allowed to do the deed. I had been granted a rare power, and felt compelled to use it.
But why?
I mean, why would I be the only person — out of an estimated 8 billion people on the planet — who had the legal authority to remove the tag? Not even Joe Biden, nor Xi Jinping, nor Vladimir Putin had the legal authority to cut the tag off my pillow.
Let that sink in for a moment. 8 billion people, who can’t do what I did to my pillow.
Turns out, however, that this law applies only in America.
15 U.S.C. § 70c. Removal of stamp, tag, label, or other identification
(a) After shipment of a textile fiber product in commerce it shall be unlawful, except as provided in this subchapter, to remove or mutilate, or cause or participate in the removal or mutilation of, prior to the time any textile fiber product is sold and delivered to the ultimate consumer, any stamp, tag, label, or other identification required by this subchapter to be affixed to such textile fiber product, and any person violating this section shall be guilty of an unfair method of competition, and an unfair or deceptive act or practice, under the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.).
In China or Russia, Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin could cut off my pillow’s tag and get away scot-free.
I’m not suggesting that Xi or Vlad would actually do that, but just that they could. Legally.
Apparently, the whole problem started in America, when people stopped making their own pillows and started buying manufactured pillows from Walmart, made by capitalist manufacturers. Because no one can see what’s inside a pillow, the capitalist manufacturers started filling their pillows with pretty much anything soft they could get their hands on, which back in those days was, like, old rags, or shredded newspaper, or horse hair, or corn husks, or old potato peels. Not nice stuffing… and sometimes, stuffing that harbored bacteria and other nasty ingredients.
So the U.S. government, in its infinite wisdom, required the pillow makers to declare, in ALL CAPS, what they had stuffed their pillow with, and attach a tag certifying the stuffing. Which tag could not be removed, except by the consumer.
The idea was to keep pillows safe.
There is really nothing more innocent and harmless than a pillow. But America likes to keep everyone safe.
I can think of a few other things that could probably use a tag, removable only by the consumer. Guns, for example. Opioid drugs. News websites.
A six-pack of beer.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.