Monday night there was a HUGE spider in our living room. That night I felt like I had creepy crawlies all over me while I tried to sleep. Tuesday I spent the day washing sheets, vacuuming the mattress and box spring, spraying anti-dust mite ((eeew.) spray, vacuuming more, vacuuming under the bed, dusting the bedroom furniture, spraying some Febreeze everywhere, etc. In addition, I realized the pillows hubs and I currently use are from WAY before marriage... in other words, about 5 years old. I'm thinking, how many nasty germs have been living up in those pillows for the past 5 years?! Gag. So it was time to clean them.
Note: I'd removed the little tags from these pillows approximately 5 years ago.
I guess I should also disclose here that I had a pillow once that I wanted to clean. I put it in the washing machine (gently cycle) but by the end of it, it looked like winter had arrived in my washing machine--stuffing everywhere! Oh, well. I figured it was probably just that pillow being old and not able to handle a good washing.
Back to Tuesday. I put both mine and hubs' pillows in the washing machine, gentle cycle, with an extra rinse. This time I bothered to check on them often throughout the cycle. Good thinking, eh? Well, I checked once during the initial washing phase and found both pillows appearing to be fully in tact. Until I tried to flip mine over so the top of it would get nice and clean, too. Apparently the bottom seam had done ripped open and stuffing was ready to go Every. Where. Ya, just what I was afraid of.
So the washing machine was completely full of water at this time. It took some effort but I removed my pillow and set it aside, checked on hubs' pillow (which amazingly was just fine) and let the washer keep doing it's thing.
My pillow? Guess you could say this is "what's left" of it:

So, I'm probably gonna head over to the local BB&B just to check out their selection and see if there's a pillow there that I completely fall in love with. If not, I'll be shopping online (as I do for pretty much everything else anyway!).
Oh, before I forget... So hubs' pillow made it through the wash, right? Well, it went into the dryer and literally went through at least 6 dryer cycles totaling about 5 hours of drying time. And the end result?

I just don't think we're meant to wash pillows. :)
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