Maliaphile Seeking Maliaphobe

First time posting here, and no idea if people even read these anymore. I sure hope you do. It was last Thursday, I think around 6:45. You were facing a shopping window, staring into Bernadette’s Wig Shop. Someone was behind you, their hands on your shoulders, muttering something into your ear. I was on my nightly stroll and you glanced at me as I approached. Our eyes met briefly, but I don’t think anything registered, at least not on your end. My heart leapt, but you just looked terrified as you gazed back into the shop.

It wasn’t until I came close enough that I realized the person behind you (girlfriend, maybe) was whispering sweet reassurances about having nothing to fear. I looked into the shop and it all became clear: you have maliaphobia! I stopped in my tracks (just behind your “friend”) and I watched as she forced you to confront your fear of wigs, as if she could somehow scare or chase the fear out of your brain. I really don’t know why people try to do that. Nevertheless, I watched you begin to weep. My soul ached for you, and I wanted nothing more than to give that friend of yours a firm clout to the ear. Instead, I walked on like a great coward and the guilt has been gnawing at me ever since. Oh, please, please see this post!

In the time that’s passed since we last saw each other — or perhaps more accurately, since I last saw you — I’ve come to learn that you and I aren’t so different as one may expect. We appear to be of or around the same age. We’re both big, and I mean that in the sense that planes, trains, and automobiles were not designed to accommodate people of our size. And if you felt any connection to my reference of the critically-acclaimed 1987 film Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, well then, we can just add sense of humor to our growing list of compatibilities, can’t we?

But our similarities aren’t what I’ve been pondering for this past week. Rather, it’s been one very specific, utterly eerie difference: the sheer fact that you are deathly afraid of all things wigs, and I am the direct and exact opposite. I am what people would class as a maliaphile, or, less creatively, I’m a wig lover. So in the off chance that you do read this, I hope that you can understand my yearning to connect with you.

I wasn’t born a maliaphile, as most people usually are. If I journey to the dim recesses of my brain, I must admit that I too experienced a stage in life, long ago, where wigs scared me beyond words. Therapists have tried to convince me that the fear was born from a grandmother possibly removing her gray wig in the delivery room at my birth, traumatizing my infant moldable mind as I watched. Unsurprisingly, none of the therapists, past or current, have been able to bring forth any evidence to support such an oddly specific event. Some have modified minor details here and there, but every one of them has remained adamant that it wasn’t just any grandmother, but a grandmother specifically from three generations past that was the root cause of my fear.

It’d be wildly off the mark to say that my maliaphobic years were merely difficult. Indeed, I wish that difficult was the only way to describe it. At times my fear of wigs was so crippling that I couldn’t leave my bed for days. The times that I did manage to get out of the house, I’d have hallucinations where wigs would jump from their owners’ heads and begin chasing me down the street and into dark alleys. On one such occasion, I unknowingly ran over thirty miles, trying desperately to escape what was to me certain death. It was that fear-filled chase that changed everything for me.

After running so many miles to a part of the county that was foreign to me, I came upon the office of a homeopathic practitioner whose specialization was in what he called “curing fear.” I couldn’t believe it. I mean, what are the chances, right? I immediately walked into the office and the first thing that grabbed my attention was a cheeseburger sealed inside a glass showcase. There was no explanation, and I thought to myself that the cheeseburger must be very special and if this is the way they treat their burgers, then this was my kind of place.

To make a long story short, a man, very quick of tongue and in a lab coat came out to greet me. After I told him that I had a fear of wigs, he cut me off and told me not to say another word. He touched my forehead, still sweaty from running, with a finger and after a moment of pondering he told me very profoundly that I had come to him because I had a fear of wigs. I was floored. How could he know that? He then left the room and came back thirty seconds later with a vial whose label read “Wig Juice.” The man pressed it into my hand and told me that if I held it tightly for twenty minutes without loosening my grip, my fear would be cured. I asked him how much this was going to cost me. He asked me how much cash I had in my pockets, to which I replied that I had just over four hundred dollars. He told me that I was in luck because that was the exact cost to cure me.

Twenty minutes after this chance encounter with my homeopathic healer, my maliaphobia died and my maliaphilia was born. I have since shaved my head and worn a wig every moment thereafter.

I am writing this not out of some lusty sexual desire, but simply because I feel your pain each and every day. I am now my own homeopathic professional, specializing in the extraction of rare wig essential oils. I believe your fear can be cured with my help. I have a cabin up north that is full of years of accumulated wigs, both new and used, belonging to me and others. The cabin has not been frequented as of late, and I fear that the place has become quite dusty. If you’re reading this, I want you to know that you are not alone. I hear you and I see you. There is relief, and you only need to take my hand. Don’t let a mere missed connection keep you from a life fulfilled.

You had fiery red hair spilling out from beneath a Yankees hat. Tell me what color and brand my wig was and maybe we can meet up at my dusty wig cabin and exchange old war stories. God, I hope you see this!