I was about to climb into bed with Heather Graham when the doorbell woke me out of my dream. It was 3:30 in the morning. I fumbled for my glasses, pulled myself out of bed, and fell back asleep on the floor.

But the doorbell kept ringing. Who could it be at this hour? An emergency?! A loved one in trouble? My eyes popped open. I jumped up, ran to the front door, and flung it open. You guessed it. My neighbor Norman. You remember Norman, don't you? President, Chief Technical Officer, and sole receptionist for the company formally known as SoftPop Software, but now known--since SoftPop.com was already taken--as SoftPopDotCom.com.

But it wasn't just Norman this time. It was Norman wearing a silly hat--a pith helmet with assorted odd things hanging off of it.

"Lincoln," he cried happily. "I've got the greatest news! I'm getting out of the computer business!"

Now that was great news! "Really?" I said. "Since I only write about computers and the Internet, I guess you won't be needing to…"

"SoftPopDotCom.com will now be making Internet appliances."

I knew it was too good to be true. "Norman, can we discuss this in the morning?"

Norman looked at his watch. "OK. Will 3:35 in the morning do? How about some coffee?"

Before I could answer, Norman was in my kitchen, setting up my coffee machine.

"The PC is dead," he explained, "as dead as Sherlock Holmes, Superman, and Frankenstein's monster. And just like them, he's never coming back. People want to get on the Internet more than ever before. In fact, there are more than five times as many people using the Internet today then there were only 30 years ago. So, if they don't want personal computers, how will these people get online?"

"Norman, does this have something to do with your hat?"

He looked at me and smiled. "Very good! This isn't just a hat, though, it's a Handless Asynchronous Telesystem, and it allows me to keep in touch with the Internet no matter where I go."

I fought the temptation to ask him how it worked, so he told me without being asked.

"The HAT contains a cellular link to the Internet via my own ISP, SoftPopDotComPOP.net. It's an always-on connection, so you can check your e-mail and keep up with your stock quotes without ever having to dial your head."

The coffee machine was just finishing its job when curiosity finally got the better of me.

"How can you read e-mail in your hat?" I asked. "Do you need to take it off?"

"Not at all," he answered, picking up the coffee pot. "You just push the monitor button and down comes a convenient LCD."

He pushed a button on his sleeve, and a screen flipped down in front of his eyes. He then picked up a cup and poured coffee onto the cat.

"Norman," I asked, "can you see anything?"

"Sure," he said, confidently drinking out of an empty cup. "I can see that the Dow is up, the Nasquith is down, and Britney has fallen out of her…"

I interrupted him quickly this time. "What about input? How do you tell it what to do?" He turned in the direction of my voice, smashing his cup against a wall. "You've heard of data gloves, haven't you?" "Yes," I said, looking at his bare hands.

He smiled proudly. "I've invented data socks!" He lifted one foot, showing off his shoeless foot sheathed in pink, sequined cotton, and proudly started wiggling his toes. "Oops. Got an error message." He dropped that foot and lifted the other, this one basic black with wires sticking out. "Dang! Hang on a minute while I reboot."

Norman started jumping up and down as hard as he could. After a few times, he stopped and smiled. "There we go. I'll be back online momentarily. You know what I need?" he suddenly said. "More coffee."

He felt his way to the counter, picked up a container of old garbage destined for the compost heap, and poured it into the sugar bowl. Then he took a long drink, made a curious, slightly confused face, and smiled with satisfaction.

"Norman," I ventured, "maybe it's time you lifted up the monitor, turned off your hat, and went home."

"Nonsense! I'm having a great time. You know, there's a lot of concern that sitting around all day using the Internet isn't healthy. But I'm getting plenty of exercise! Time to read my e-mail!" He began jumping around joyfully, smashing into walls and chairs.

"Norman!" I shouted. "Norman! Norman! Will you just stay still?!"

He suddenly froze, not moving a muscle except to frown. "You know what I'm missing," he finally said.

"Common sense?"

"Audio. What's the Internet today without a thousand wonderful sounds assaulting your ear?" He pushed another button on his sleeve, and two earpieces emerged from the hat brim and planted themselves in his ears. "Yes, that's it!" he cried and jumped joyfully into the air. Suddenly he was serious again. "Oops. I just rebooted."

While he stood there, waiting for his system to come up again, I quietly left the room and returned to bed. I went back to sleep to the periodic sounds from the kitchen of objects crashing in the night.

In addition to Gigglebytes, Lincoln Spector writes an online general interest humor column called The Link Inspector. You'll find links to all of his work at http://www.thelinkinspector.com.