Week 7: "When you live for someone you're prepared to die"

[witchwife]

"When you live for someone you're prepared to die"

My Barbie doll didn't wear a dress. She wore a black wetsuit that was so much a part of her identity that it was painted right on to her skin. She had plastic pink flippers and a pink one piece bathing suit that complimented her immaculately applied makeup. (Waterproof mascara, no doubt.)

She was

Comments

[sinnamongirl]

This is such a great slice of nostalgia! I had one Barbie myself; she was brown haired, as mom was not so fond of Barbies in general and so conceded to the fact little girls have them, but refused a blonde one. At one point, mad at my mom, I buzzed her hair off (my mom was also brown haired and blue eyed, and from my 2 foot tall vantage looked awfully tall and skinny). I was very young, preschool or so, so I had no conception of "punk rock Barbie" or "butch daddy lesbian Barbie" so she was just... bald. Later on my friend and I would play with Barbies, and I had no idea what to do. I just clutched W's Barbies in a hand and did whatever she directed me to (which actually characterized most of our friendship, sadly enough). Then my aunt got me a Barbie when I was 11 or 12, and a dog immediately ate it. My cousin had literally boxes full of Barbies, got the special one every Christmas and all. I just never understood playing with them

[meridian_rose]

"She bore the scars of deep teeth marks on her thigh from when the dog got hold of her. I later explained her injuries as a shark attack. " Good call :)
I knew from a very young age I didn't want children. Babies are boring, though older kids are good in small doses :)

[witchwife]

I always wanted a brunette Barbie! Or a black Barbie. I had a bit of a collection, but all of them were boring blondes. That's hilarious that you went to such extreme measures as to buzz her hair off. She probably looked so bad ass! ("Butch Daddy Lesbian Barbie"?! I think we have an idea for Dragon's Den/Shark Tank here..)

My sister was actually the same way when it came to dolls. She didn't understand playing with them unless directed what to do. She preferred science or craft kits. Things that actually made sense.

I had a ton of stuffed animals too - that article sounds so interesting. I wonder what the connection is..

[sinnamongirl]

It was potentially even a knock-off Barbie? I think it was real though. The blonde ones were awfully boring, in my opinion. idk. I didn't go the other way completely and play with GI Joes (I'm pretty sure they weren't allowed in our house because of violence), but, yeah, it just didn't make sense to me.

If I can dig up that article, I'll link it to you! I may have to ask the Pox where it's from, probably NPR related somehow.

But, you know, they're making all these 'differently shaped' Barbies now... so why not butch daddy lesbian Barbie? Get all the demographics to have Barbies!

[awakenyourfaith]

Ah nostalgia... Thank you for sharing this! The binary of memories of the past and the vignettes from more recent memories worked very well.

In a similar vein, I was never really fond of playing the game "House". Nor did I ever play with an Easy Bake oven. It just didn't appeal to me.

[witchwife]

I hated "House"! I always opted to be the family dog. It was an easy out for still being included, but not doing the whole gross family thing. I remember all the other girls used to fight over who got to play the part of the baby, which I found completely revolting.

Didn't have an Easy Bake oven, but I did have a Creepy Crawlers thing. (You know where you bake a bunch of different insects/monsters?)

What did you actually play with?

[awakenyourfaith]

Right?!

Heck yeah Creepy Crawlers! :D

I played with Barbies and American Girl Dolls, mostly. I made up all sorts of stories for the former: kinda like soap opera lite.

[tonithegreat]

Oh man! Barbies! Mine were almost all hand-me-downs from my cousin, but my best friend and I played with them as older children (like more 10-11) in the river, swimming, and they had glorious epic adventures which may have been loosely based on bad western romance novels that we both delighted in and made fun of at the time. And now my daughters have inherited most of the same set of them. I really enjoyed this!

[witchwife]

This was absolutely hilarious. Sorry for my belated response. When I initially read this comment, I thought reenacting the bad western romances was the best thing ever. Especially imagining these from an eleven year old's point of view.

[eternal_ot]

I LOL-ed at 'Sandy abandoned her nameless bundle to Barbie and took off on an adventure to never be seen again.' This was a Fun read. Liked the co-relation you drew from the prompt. Nice work!

[witchwife]

Thank you! haha. Was a bit worried about the response to that line. There's a few parents participating in Idol and I wasn't sure if they would be horrified beyond repair. Particularly with the reference to postpartum. Eek!

[adoptedwriter]

I think I recall that Barbie doll from way back!
This is a cute story.

AW

[witchwife]

Yeah? She came with an orca whale that sprayed water. They were the best. ;)

Thanks for taking the time to read/comment!

[adoptedwriter]

We still have the orca whale. Saving it for future grand kid toys some day. Barbie is long-gone.

AW