When "blank" was young...

Sadly, I am writing about dolls. But I just finished having dinner with a few friends. And for about 15 minutes the topic was... you guessed it... dolls. On the positive side, the stories were probably the funniest and most entertaining doll stories I've ever heard. Let me share a couple.

When Sarah was young, she had a propensity for cutting things. Low and behold, Sarah found her perfect toy. She thinks it's name was Polly Hair. Is that crappiest name ever for a doll? Anyways, Polly Hair's (wtf) hair had the ability to grow. So when Sarah pushed this little button on Polly's back, she would make this motor sound (ehhhhhhhhhh) and her ponytail would start growing. If you wanted to cut her hair, you couldn't because the scissors included with the toy did not have blades. So you just mashed her hair between two plastic arms and pretended. Then (my favorite) if you wanted the hair to retract, you would have to crank her arm. Definitely the "jankiest" toy ever.

When Laura was young, Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage. While living in a small town in Iowa, the local toy store carried the only stock of these garden-variety children. Unfortunately, when Laura's parents arrived to purchase two dolls for Laura and her sister, the toy store was all out of white babygirls. Oh yea, by the way, Laura and her sister are white girls. Only two options were left-- the black babygirl or the white babyboy. And as Laura would say, "Everyone knows the boy cabbage patch dolls were second rate." Regardless, Laura's parents purchased a white boy doll and a black girl doll for their kids. When Laura unwrap her gift, she was the proud parent of a black babygirl Cabbage Patch Kid. At this very moment, she became the white Sojourner Truth of the mid-1980s doll civil rights movement. When her friends mentioned that it didn't make sense for Laura to have a black babygirl doll, Laura would vehemently defend her kid by saying, "Well, my husband is black!"

When Bertie was young, she was only allowed to play with Barbie, not Ken... you know, she's Catholic and there is no premarital sex, especially between inanimate objects with the anatomical correctness of a paper clip. That's a side note. Anyways, she had about dozen Barbies. One day her mom walks in the room and finds Bertie hanging her Barbies from ceiling with yarn. Here's a Barbie hanging from her neck. There's a Barbie hanging from her legs. Bertie's mom asks, "Bertie, what are you doing?" Bertie turns and answers, "Look mom! Circus of the Stars!"