My new haircut makes me look like I've got no neck. Don't look -- I assure you it's quite disturbing.

I had a Neckless Barbie once; hers was a tragic tale. Once a Superstar, her neck was broken in an unfortunate Barbie-tossing incident. As a result I had to smoosh her head way down on the remaining stump, lest she instead become Headless Barbie, or Barbie Head on a Stick. Thus: Neckless. You'd be amazed how integral a neck is to the Barbie mystique -- she somehow looked evil and unattractive by comparison. With no future as a traditional Barbie beauty, soon after she was shorn of her long blonde locks and given a blue Magic Marker dye job. My overactive 8-year-old imagination then devised a storyline for her in which she lost her mind after losing her neck and her looks, and thereafter lived only to torment and torture the other Barbies, so that they too might live lives of pain and failure. Her nefarious plans were usually thwarted, though, and only brought her pity from her peers. Eventually she succeeded in stealing another Barbie's neck-intact body, but she never fully recaptured her former glory, as there was still the issue of that forebidding punk hairdo. Such is the power of a hairstyle, people. And a neck.

Unlike Neckless Psycho Punk Barbie, though, my hair will grow. I do not look any more evil or unattractive than usual. My mind was lost long ago. And I have yet to pull off a body-snatching caper. Just the same, you may not want to leave yours unattended.