Bikini Wax Chronicles

Yesterday I did a snarky post about the new Barbie Dream House Experience that opened

My Barbie case….and I’ve got he ball gown she’s wearing.

last week in Florida…to yawns….and in Berlin…to boos.

I’m firmly in the ‘booing’ camp. With a megaphone. Never bought my girls Barbies, tried to avoid gender-based toys all together.

But at the same time I cherish my girlhood Barbies.

Inconsistent?

You bet. Like thinking that everyone should go to public school (schools will get better that way), and then sending my girls to private.

My retro Barbie case sits near my front door, staged as art. “Are there really Barbies in there?” people ask.

There are. I open the box carefully. They are perfect, my Midge and Barbie—in NRFB condition– with her bubble hair-do and too-blue eye shadow.

“Will you make a coat for my Barbie?” my eight-year-old self asked my great grandmother. She and my grandmother made all of my clothes. Little mid-drift tops and full-skirted dresses. Who could refuse my cute self? I look at that Barbie coat with the full collar and swing skirt, in ‘60s colors, and instantly see Grandma Ethel sitting on the couch stitching away, because the sleeves were so tiny it would never fit in her machine. She was a seamstress, a widow who had raised her four children with her sewing machine, but my request undid her. “Please Karen, I will make anything you want for you, but don’t ever ask me to make anything else for your Barbie.”

The three of us girls shared one bedroom. The room was so tight Daddy had to take the door off its hinges. No need to iron our dresses. They were packed in the closet it took huge strength to pry one out. Most of the toys went into the community toy box in the hallway. But not my Barbies.

I kept track of every little shoe. The spatula from the barbeque set. The little glasses painted orange three quarters of the way up to signify juice. I’ve got them all.

My Barbies were sacrosanct. Still are. There are a lot of memories in that black box.

I’ll happily show them to you.

Just don’t touch.

Barbie coat made by my great-grandmother. “Never again.”

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