I woke up this morning with a quite vivid memory of a dream still in my head. I’m not too sure what to make of it. Armchair psychoanalysis is welcome.

In the dream, a large chunk of hair fell off the back of my head onto my pillow. However, it wasn’t real hair, it was that fake polyester doll hair. Further, when examining the bald spot on the back of my head, it became apparent that it was not scalp under the hair back there. Instead, several more chunks of doll hair were adhered to a plastic panel on the back of my head where my skull should be. My face, and the hair on the front of my head were normal, but the back of my head had been replaced.

I was incredulous. How could I have possibly not realized this sooner? How could my barber not have at least noticed that the hair was fake back there!! Then the plot thickened. My childhood barber, an ancient German man with a thick accent, named Otto, appeared on the scene. He was sporting glue, and a cordless screwdriver. He assured me this was all the result of an accident when I was a child, and that no one wanted to trouble me with the awful truth of how they rebuilt my skull. And he would take care of everything.

I sat in the barber chair and he proceeded to remove the fastening screws from the back panel of my head with the cordless tool. He then popped the back of my skull off rather like opening a TV for repair. I sat there calmly with my brain pan exposed while he re-glued the misbehaving hair chunks onto the flimsy plastic. He then deftly screwed the panel back in place, combed the hair all out and trimmed it a bit. Then he assured me all was well, and sent me on my way.

This is about when my alarm went off. Although rather than lingering and listening to the radio for the morning weather, as is my wont, I sat bolt upright, grabbed the back of my head and bolted for the bathroom mirror. For the life of me I can’t find the exposed screws. But dammit, my hair hasn’t felt right all day.