The dictionary says the word "surreal" means bizarre, weird, freakish, phantasmagorical.
"Surreal" has wormed its way into popular usage but we have stripped it of personality. We often call things surreal that are merely interesting or coincidental. For example, we might say: I bought some Life cereal the other day and it tasted like shredded wheat! It was surreal!
Mark KennedyView other columns by Mark Kennedy
No, it was not surreal. Not even close.
This is surreal: A owl wearing a fedora perched on my shoulder and playing "Purple Rain" on a piccolo.
I had never experienced a "surreal" day until one recent Saturday, when a cloud of weirdness wrapped around me like a Pillsbury dinner roll around a cocktail frank. It actually started before even I woke up.
In my early morning dream, I had driven an 18-wheel truck to work. Later, as I was trying to exit the Times Free Press parking lot, I was greeted by an array of Radio City Rockettes who formed two facing kick lines and beckoned me with elegant arm gestures to drive right down the middle.
I was enjoying this musical interlude when I noticed a stranger - definitely not a Rockette - lurking at the end of the corridor of dancers. He was slender, at least 8 feet tall and not intimidated in the least by my truck, which was now bearing down on him. After two warning blasts from my air horn, the man - who was dressed in black and looked like a performer from Cirque du Soleil - turned and locked eyes with me. Then, he did the most improbable thing: He leaped into the air and came down astride the hood of the truck, where he landed with a thud and a smile.
I'm not a dream expert, but it seems that we have a circuit breaker inside us that trips when a dream gets too weird. At the point the stranger jumped onto the truck, I woke up and the dream dissolved.
Later that day, fully awake, I became convinced that an SUV I was driving for my Test Drive column was taunting me. For no apparent reason, the SUV started beeping and the "door ajar" warning light on the dash began to illuminate. Whenever I applied the brakes, it stopped. Four times on my way home from Walmart, I pulled over to try to solve the issue. Each time, I opened and closed all the doors. Each time, when I attempted to drive again, the SUV resumed its maddening alarm.
Later that evening, I was watching a television show in the family room when I heard my wife's panicked voice as she descended the stairs.
"It's stuck, this thing is stuck," she gasped, both hands clutching her hair.
Seeing no blood, I tried to remain calm. "Sit down," I said, "and let's see what's going on."
Actually, I knew exactly what was going on. My 10-year-old son had summoned his mother upstairs to watch him pilot his miniature drone. She had emerged minutes later with the thing caught in her hair like a bat in a mosquito net. "Caught" is actually an understatement. Each of the drone's four tiny propellers, which spin at hummingbird-wing speed, had grabbed a strand of her hair and instantly spooled into an unholy tangle.
I tried to keep her calm and steered her away from any mirrors, much in the same way you would treat a person with an arrow through the head. Meanwhile, my 15-year-old son and I gently removed the propellers and set aside the drone; which allowed my wife to comb out the tangles.
On the list of things I expected to see that day, seeing my wife's hair attacked by a tiny helicopter was not on the list. It was surreal.
Sometimes I think God lets his mischievous angels have a little fun with us on their days off.
The result is not just surreal, it's phantasmagorical.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.