Homicidal Barbie - the newest playtoy!

Why does everyone look at me funny when I use Barbie as a reference whenever something evil happens in their lives?

When I was a young girl, I did not have any sisters or any female cousins close to my age. I did have a couple of female cousins who had outgrown playing with Barbies however, that gave me their old playtoys. Between birthdays, Christmas, and the hand-me-downs, I had one of the larger collections of Barbies that people actually played with in the neighborhood. Each summer, my older cousin, Ellen, would come to watch me. We would play Barbies at least three times a week, after Ellen had watched her favorite soap opera. Now, I’ve heard that most girls growing up had fun combing Barbie’s hair and putting her into cool outfits so she could go on her date with Ken. Nice, normal right? I don’t think so. With the influence of Ellen’s soap operas, Barbie had the personality of a psychopath.

We had a running list of the things that happened in Barbie’s life. You know, day-to-day stuff such as taking out the garbage (Ken), cleaning house (or making Skipper do that), planting flowers (oh, how decomposing flesh was a great fertilizer), and, well, you get my point. There was a rule in the land of Barbie. If someone was getting married and the bride or groom did not show up, the one left at the altar had to marry someone who showed up to the wedding. The dolls had many marriages and divorces. (Divorce comes naturally when you are forced to marry someone you really dislike.) When Barbie got married, she didn’t change her name, she just added to it. Now, not all of the female Barbie’s had the same name. We were more creative than that. Let’s see, there was Kristie, Jen, Sue, Hair (she was the Barbie with really long hair), Legs (you know, the style of Barbie that had the hard plastic legs, not the bendy kind so it was okay to put that one in jeans), and of course, Barbie. Those are all I remember right now. There were other Barbie’s of course, and I seem to remember they were named for the outfits they wore, but they were minor characters.

Ken was a sissy. That’s all there is to it. Since the Ken dolls were not that great to play with when I was a child (I don’t know if they’ve gotten any better), I had inherited some Dukes of Hazards dolls from Ellen’s brother, Brad. The Dukes of Hazards dolls were slightly larger than Ken, so of course Ken clothing did not fit them. They dressed rather unconventionally. Luke and Bo wore togas to classy functions many times. Old pieces of bed linen were also good to wrap up the men like mummies and sometimes they took to wearing Barbie’s skirts with elastic waistbands.

Looking back, I see how I had a demented childhood where women were powerful and able to kill, maim, cheat, steal, lie, and do whatever they wanted. At least the men were able to express their sexuality!