By a jumbo jet

Got my head shaved today. Not down to the quick or anything, but at least to the cuticle, if you want to think about it like a thumb.

The only reason I suggest this sort of cogitation, of course, is a direct result of the fact that thumbs are apparently a distinctly intelligible life force. I reached this conclusion after spending four and a half hours on the Galapagos Islands, studying the various lengths of birds’ beaks before feeding their owners to my beagle. My in-depth interrogation offered me the hitherto unprecedented opportunity to publish a book, and I hastily did so, with the concomitant observation that I would have been quite unsightly signing the book contract if my limbs were devoid of their opposable digits.

Hence my obeisance towards that metacarpal so stiltingly referred to as the “fifth finger.” You might as well call my newly-shined cranium an adventure in chromatology. But it really has nothing to do with being shiny for shiny’s sake—it’s actually intended as an important mechanism of self-defense.

That’s right—my penchant for an elegant coif has given way to a cheap new security system which functions in two (2) ways:

First, the casual observer may have noticed, upon first glimpse of my Elvis-shaped frontal lobe, that the extensive and flowing locks clustered high ‘round my glistering brow are actually nothing more than a clever cover-up; in a word, a comb-over. It’s true: my forehead has for some time now been a partner in climate change, making newer, narrower, longer, more extensive inlets into the geography of my scalp that should (and used to) be covered by blond hair, straight, flat, and reminiscent of day-old spaghetti. The Donald Trump strategy can only work for so long, I’ve realized, so I’ve steeled myself for the alternative: something along the lines of making a war to cover up the bodies.

Incidentally, these fjords, as it were, seem not to be utterly stifling the growth of my hair, but rather are simply the result of a general retreat taking place on my chroming crown. My neck has seen several new outcroppings of the friendly follicles, and my back has never been so woolly warm.

The second manner in which my newest hairstyle doubles as a defense stems from a growing realization I’ve had that lasers are the weapon of the future. I’m typically a meek and mild-mannered altar ego, but I’ve spat my spit-balls in the past, as it were, and think it no unrealistic precaution to make as much of my body as reflective as possible. For the same reason, I also keep a can of silver spray-paint in my pocket, just in case I need at short notice to convert myself into a mirror.

To realize these double-armed goals, I had no recourse, of course, but to depend upon my wife—heretofore referred to as my Barbarous Barberess—to cut my hair. Twice.

I have no problem with depending upon my wife—I do so quite frequently; daily, even—nor do I intend “Barbarous Barberess” in a solely derogatory sense. She was a picture of patience while I squirmed under the scissors and a model of charity for even touching my grease-ball head in the first place.

But she did hack away at my gnarled strands as if my baldness was the bride-price for some ancient Teutonic fief. My head of limp spaghetti was not, apparently, completely congruent with her aesthetic sense; it was therefore, without further ado, sundered. She started out by attacking my mane with a pair of crafting scissors, but when she stepped back to view the results, her foot started tapping rapidly, abstractedly, on the cold linoleum floor. She turned to rummage in the closet, I started cleaning up the hair scattered on the floor, and then I heard the click and whirr of the electric shaver. I knew immediately that my dome was destined for denuding.

And I’m actually okay with that. It’s not every day that you get to do laser bends with your head. Now, if I can only figure out how to shave my thumbs...