Wrangler Dani

We were registering for our wedding at REI, and we were wandering. You don’t register for essentials at REI, you register for weekend things. Fun stuff, the things you can’t wait to spend time and money on once you’re finally married and get your life back. So there they were, the perfect non-essential gift, the thing that is least likely to change our lives and yet seemed so necessary in the moment: stuffable travel pillows. We barely exchanged a glance – we knew we needed them. Blip, went the scanner, and they were on our registry, begging for someone who wasn’t in the mood for place settings and sheet sets to find them.

A few months later, they arrived on our soon-to-be-shared doorstep, gifted from a fun-loving aunt.

I chuckled over them and went back to whatever essential pre-wedding thing I was working on. I’d gone to camp for years and never taken a pillow: even as a camp counselor I just balled a sweatshirt under my head and went to sleep, considering the comfort of a pillow not worth the hassle of transporting one. Camping in the woods was no different – I’d never been one to carry pillows and blankets with me, figuring that beach towels and sweatshirts were more than soft enough for my purposes.

But now we had these little cute pillows, all stuffed and ready for travel. On our first camping trip as man and wife I brought them along, laughing at myself and what I considered over-preparedness. But lord have mercy, those little pillows were comfortable. Maybe it was sleeping under the stars with my new husband, and maybe it was a travel pillow, but I’m not taking any chances. Sometimes it’s worth splurging on non-essentials.