Ben Bass goes beyond

...his usual stomping grounds, that is.

I made my first-ever visit to Bed Bath & Beyond yesterday. I've tolerated sleeping on lousy pillows for way too long and I finally treated myself to an upgrade. Plus I wanted to check out this place that has totally plagiarized the name of my blog.

Bed Bath turns out to be a nice store, with an extensive array of appealing merchandise. With all the rustic welcome mats and the Polartec throws, the Calphalon this and Wamsutta that, I felt like I'd been spirited into wedding-registry purgatory. (I've never registered for a wedding, so someday I will surely change that opinion to either registry heaven or hell.)

At the risk of sounding like a thousand hacky comedians, my strong sense was that there were three categories of people in Bed Bath & Beyond:

1. Women customers with the mild smiles of people doing something they enjoy.
2. Helpful gay men who work there.
3. Men who have no clue what they're doing but know they're missing a playoff game for this.

A gentleman from category 2 and a lady from category 1 both helped me navigate the bewildering pillow section. It turns out the appropriate degree of firmness depends on whether you sleep on your back, side or front.

I still don't get the difference among identical-looking and -feeling $10 pillows, $40 pillows, $100 pillows and $180 pillows, but I don't really care. I'm happy with the ones I bought and any of them would have been better than the tired old ones I'm getting rid of.

I also set a new distinction in the annals of American retail: first idiot ever to shop at Bed Bath & Beyond without using one of their ubiquitous 20% off coupons. I told you I don't know what I'm doing.