My Drift
“GiGi, don’t you have this one?”
My seven-year-old granddaughter was indicating an image in a special Barbie edition of Life Magazine I had bought for her. Okay, maybe I really bought it for myself, but I let her look at it whenever she wants to.
I explained to Bryce that “this one” was actually “the one” that started the whole thing. With her blonde ponytail and her black and white strapless swimsuit, she was the original Barbie doll. I also explained that, while the one in my collection looks just like her, she’s really a 50th Anniversary special edition and not the original. I remember the original.
It was 1959 when I found myself at the sixth birthday party of a girl in my kindergarten class. She took a few of us upstairs to her room to show us the birthday present her parents had given her.
I can’t remember this little girl’s name, or even recall what she looked like, but her Barbie doll remains forever etched in my memory. The curly bangs. The ridiculously long legs. The tiny stiletto-heeled sandals on the permanently arched feet. The powder blue corduroy jumper with felt appliques on the skirt lying ready to, with the white, puffed-sleeve blouse, replace the perfectly fitting striped swimsuit. I had seen nothing like it in my short life. The thrill I felt was profound.
I didn’t get a Barbie doll of my own right away. Indeed, I hadn’t totally grasped what I had seen and probably struggled to adequately describe it to my parents. Barbie, being brand new, was hardly a household word. I also had three siblings; none of us generally got whatever we wanted whenever we asked for it.
It was thus two years later that I placed Barbie at the top of my Christmas wish list. My little sister and I nearly drove our poor mother around the bend that December by constantly changing the hair color of the Barbie dolls we were hoping to find under the Christmas tree. There is no way to know how many dolls she exchanged. Finally, running out of patience, she decreed that mind-changing was over and we were out of options. If we wanted any Christmas presents at all, we’d better drop the subject.
Which is how I ended up with a raven-haired doll and my sister received a platinum blonde. And is probably why, when I discovered my doll’s left foot to be misshapen, causing her shoe to pop off unexpectedly, my mother allowed my father to “fix” it.
Now, my dad was pretty handy and could fix a lot of things. But it seems to me that the best solution to a defective doll would have been to “exchange it with Santa” on Monday morning. My father, however, probably afraid another doll exchange would send my mother over the edge, chose instead to take my doll to his garage workbench and perform foot surgery on her with a razor blade.
The resulting foot, originally too thick across the toes, was too thin to retain a shoe. The plastic sandal no longer popped off but simply fell sadly to the floor. I was heartbroken.
My sister watched as this unfolded, lovingly clutching her flawless new Barbie doll. I’m not sure who suggested that she, being only four years old, wouldn’t care if her doll was perfect, and that the two of us should trade dolls. That wouldn’t work, I argued, because my doll wouldn’t have the right hair color. A doll with black hair had, at least at some point, been my heart’s desire, and I had never wished for a platinum blonde.
“So switch the heads,” suggested my brother, and before you could say “Merry Christmas” the deformed doll became a blonde and went to live in my sister’s room.
Amy didn’t say a word, but swears to this day that the episode scarred her for life. Which is why, for her fortieth birthday, I gave her a brand-new perfect Barbie doll.
A co-worker once told me that she never had a Barbie doll as a child. She wasn’t whining about it, but simply stating a fact with which she was perfectly comfortable. I, on the other hand, was horrified.
Later that week she did me a giant favor and I contemplated how I might repay her as I cruised the grocery store aisles that evening. Rounding a corner, I noticed an endcap displaying Malibu Barbie dolls. I put one in my cart and left it on Mary’s desk the next morning.
Whatever fun she might have missed by never “playing Barbies” as a kid, she made up for and then some with that doll. She left Barbie posed on her desk whenever she was out of the office. Barbie did cartwheels. She fished with a pole made from a pencil and a paper clip hook. She took naps on a folded-up scarf.
It was September of 2001. The World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks gave way to the war that started on a Sunday afternoon. Barbie showed up at the office the next day dressed in Mary’s son’s G.I. Joe’s fatigues. Somebody fashioned a burka from a napkin, creating a mesh eye screen with panty hose and hot glue. Combat Barbie and Burka Barbie became fixtures in our conference room. They were soon joined by Doctor Barbie when a staff member was diagnosed with cancer.
It all might explain why this grown woman still collects Barbies. Barbie is iconic for sure, but for me she’s more than that. I actually got a little misty when Margot Robbie appeared in the opening scene of the Barbie movie as a dead ringer for the original Barbie that had taken my breath away at that long ago birthday party. Barbie has been woven through the fabric of my life since as early as I can remember.
The beneficiary of all this is granddaughter Bryce. She loves Barbie, too, and I tend to get her any Barbie doll, outfit, or piece of paraphernalia she desires. She didn’t even ask for the Dreamhouse, but I always wanted one, so I got it for her anyway.
My wish for you this holiday season is that you have someone to buy a Barbie for. If you don’t, I’m sure you can find an Angel on the Salvation Army tree requesting one. Or I can always make room in my collection for one more.
Thank you to Century 21 All Points Realty and Jared Horton for the generous use of the Barbie box.
