Today, I pulled enough hair out of my vacuum's beater bar brush to recreate a well-fed tribble. This happens every month, when I notice my vacuum seems to lose effectiveness.

I know when my vacuum is working, because I employ the vacuum salesman cleaning method (as seen on QVC.) Make the carpet really dirty, so the vacuum's powers appear miraculous when revealing the true carpet color. It's all about comparison. How can people who clean regularly even see a difference?

When I flip the vacuum over, so much hair is wound around the bar, the brush end is not even visible. I know it is me; others in the household share length, but not color.

Cutting the tightly spooled hair with scissors, questions come to mind. How can I have so much left? How could such a large volume exist on the carpet without me noticing a textural difference through my bare feet? Since I hardly brush it, precisely when is it falling off my head?

Is there some use for extraneous hair? I'm pretty sure Locks of Love doesn't want stray strand collections for wig-making. Would Exxon buy it to soak up oil spills? Should I lay it around the backyard perimeter to discourage coyotes? Could I burn it on the patio to keep wasps out? Donate it to Bird World for nesting material?

Following years of neglect, every once in awhile I get an urge to lop off my hair. The last drastic cut prompted one observer to remark that I looked ten years younger. It took all of my willpower not to respond: Thanks, you still look the same age.

Years before, after a heat wave-inspired chop, my three-year-old son stared across the kitchen table, perplexed. "Mom," he said at last, "your hair, it's. . .smaller," as though my steaming follicles mirrored the oven's effect on his Shrinky Dinks.

Stopping by the veterinarian, buying prescription kidney food for my domestic shorthair cat, I impulsively broached the topic with a curly maned assistant. I knew she shed, too.

"I notice you have a lot of hair," I said. "Does your vacuum. . ."

"Seam ripper," she said, briskly.

"Pardon me?"

She left the desk and returned with a small device to tear out thread. "Works better than scissors and you won't damage the vacuum roller. They have to keep one at the office, just for me."

I thought it was pretty impressive that she caused more vacuum havoc than a procession of nervous Pekinese, poodles, and Persians. I'm an amateur in comparison.