Mammoth Barbie

My parents could not buy me a barbie doll.

For four years I asked for a Barbie, just a regular Barbie, not even a special edition, just plain old "Crush-Your-Self-Esteem-With-Impossible-Bodily-Proportions-Barbie". For four years at all gift giving occasions I'd open some freakishly wrong Barbie which caused me grief when trying to play with my friends and their 'normal' Barbies.

The first barbie wasn't a barbie at all but Mabel from the dollar store. Mabel was fine but her head was shaped like a pumpkin and she just didn't fit in and as a child I was mostly about fitting in.

The next attempt was a real Barbie brand Barbie, but this Barbie was nearly three times as big as a normal Barbie and became Barb-Zilla in our games and would ruin Barbie bar-b-ques and Ken was helpless to stop it. When I opened that Barbie at my birthday party, my friend Molly said quietly, "It's okay, you can just keep using my Malibu Barbie."

On my birthday, my parents tried again and gave me a Barbie and it was normal sized and I thought they'd finally pulled their heads from their asses and given me a plain, simple, normal Barbie. I was wrong though, this was 'Model Barbie' and she came with a fake camera and a model walk. Each time her legs moved her head went side to side. Just like a model, I guess. This was fine until you tried to sit her down and her head spun around to face backwards.

My father worked for Michigan Bell for all his life. One year he attended a Michigan Bell conference in Columbus, Ohio. As an aside this is the one and only time my father travelled for work and it was a small taste of what life would be without him. What it would be was: "Awesome!" From that moment on I prayed for my parent's divorce. It only took six years of praying.

After the conference my father came home with a new Barbie doll for me! Only this one was a Lesbian Michigan Bell Repair Woman Barbie. She wore all denim and a tool belt and a hard hat and was also twice as big as a normal Barbie. The normal Barbie I'd been asking for for 3+ years.

It's clear to me as a 32 year old, my parents were mentally challenged and could not find their way to the fucking Mattel aisle of the toy store.

So, I thanked my father for my Michigan Bell Lesbian Mammoth Barbie (and silently prayed my mother enjoyed his time away as much as I did so she'd leave him finally) and promptly put it on a shelf in my room where it stayed for months without being played with.

One weekend after my father had been drinking all day he came to my room and noticed Michigan Bell Lesbian Mammoth Barbie sitting on my shelf. He stumbled over to it, picked it up and threw it across my bedroom at my head.

Michigan Bell Lesbian Mammoth Barbie happened to be African American as well as an oversized butch lesbian.

After he threw the doll at me he called me a racist because I was too God damned good for a black doll. Who did I think I was? Maybe I'll just give all your toys to someone who isn't a God Damned Racist.

It's funny though, I didn't care that the doll was black. I didn't play with it because, as a 9-year-old, I clearly had a problem with oversized lesbian phone repair workers.

Comments

[Misplaced Mama]

I suddenly feel this overwhelming urge to somehow look your name up and send you a barbie! I'm really not creepy, or a stalker, I just want to fulfill your dream of a Barbie, plain 'ol Barbie. :)

[leahpeah]

i think our parents hung out together and gave each other 'shopping tips'. i got the dollar store version and her head always popped off. always. 'oh, hello ken! where are yo- POP.' every freaking time.

[PK]

(awkward hug)

[FlippyO]

"I clearly had a problem with oversized lesbian phone repair workers."

Well, geez, who doesn't? Although, I have fond memories of Sally installing my cable A/B switch because I couldn't figure it out. But then, she tried to steal my girlfriend, and it was ON.

[Kim E]

This one hurts.

[Sarah]

I get the feeling that if you were to make your address public, you'd be inundated with normal-sized Barbies. Delivered nicely, not thrown at your head :-)

[chris]

((hug))

I had one Barbie and her leg fell off. And I could never get another because I didn't know how to take care of my things. And so for years afterward I played with my one legged barbie.

The toy I always wanted and never got was the SUnshine family. I asked for them every year for years...begged. And still I never got them.

[Susie Sunshine]

We didn't have a lot of money growing up, so I tried to rationalize that the big box of Crayolas with the sharpener in the back must be hundreds of dollars.
That got harder and harder to do as the years went on and EVERYONE pulled boxes with sharpeners from their desks and I STILL had the off-brand box of 24 with the flap that tucked in.
In college, I saw a display of boxes with sharpeners and bought one. For the first time ever, owned my own built-in sharpener.

It was $3 well spent.

[Lisa V]

Damn this well-written. Sad, poignant, but a great piece.

[TastesLikeChicken]

Perhaps an (the?) advantage of being an extremely creative, intelligent and funny adult with a mucked-up childhood is the trick of taking these episodic precious moments and rewriting them for the benefit of your child self. How awesome would it be if Michigan Bell Butch Black Lesbianator bounced off the wall behind your head and came at your Dad and bellowed "She WANTED a PLAIN Barbie, you stupid muthafuckin' muthafucka!" and then maybe she could have winked at you and produced Plain Jane Barbie that just happened to be *visiting* her...

All my Barbies and Trixies and whomevers had their feet chewed off by my beagle, Frisky, and it was a marvel the first time I saw regular feet on a regular Barbie. Similar shock and confusion with Ken's small plastic clump of genitalia...

[marian]

Well now. That seemed pretty brave to me.

[missandrea]

Great post. I love this story and I feel like I kind of love you and your friend Molly.

[alicea]

I never wanted a barbie.
I am constantly told the story of when I was 5 and a family friend gave me a barbie and my mother tried to explain to me that real women don't actually look like that. Apparently I looked at my mother like she was an idiot and said, "I know, mum. She's not a real woman because she doesn't have hair on her bum".

[K K]

(((hugs))) I read your blog regularly, but I have never commented. I wanted to say I think you are a wonderful writer, and I especially loved this entry.

I had to laugh - though I can't recall wanting a Barbie, I can remember asking for a Cabbage Patch Kid, which wasn't affordable (but I didn't know that), and getting some distinctly non-Cabbage Patch Kid iterations. Lol, they tried...

[Lena]

You clearly hate lesbians and are even possibly a Republican. Shameful.

Also, who knew we were sisters? Since we obviously have the same goddamn father.

[Jenn Bo]

Excellent post!

My mother did not allow a Barbie because their outfits where SO immodest! Eventually when I was about 9, my father (parents were divorved) bought me a barbie (western barbie with her own barbie stamp!).

My mother promptly sewed me a wardrobe of modest outfits for the barbie. Plus, she purchased me barbie underwear (cami, slip, undies).

Of course, the underwear didn't fit under the stylish metallic polyester cowgirl outfit, and I refused to dress barbie in flannel nightgowns. My barbie disappeared after about 6 months. I'd like to think it was the thieving neighbor girl, not my mother.

[Suebob Davis]

We are sisters in Barbielessness. I got the cheap copy. Black hair, different size- so I could never trade Barbie clothes with Debbie Seddich and Donna Robinson, which was the WHOLE POINT, right? A cheap knock-off outcast.

My mom was spectacularly bad at gift-giving. She would remember something I had asked for FOR YEARS and then give it to me when it was age-inappropriate. For instance, the skateboard I had begged for as a 13-year-old tomboy was given to me on my 16th birthday, when I was interested in boys and nothing but.

The classic was when she sent a balloon clown. For my 21st. I was in a state of shock, dismay and anger. NO, SHE DIDN'T! Yes, she did.

[Amy@thefoilhat]

And I thought I was traumatized because I never got an Easy Bake Oven. I've been reading your blog forever and this entry was so wonderfully written I broke down and signed up so I could leave a comment. Wish I could send you a "real" Barbie.

[amylola]

Melissa, you are awesome.

[Deb]

I heart Molly.....

[clickmom]

You know what sucks extra about the dollar store barbie imitations? Their knees didn't bend. sniff.

[Kristen]

Wow. I don't really know what to say, and I don't comment regularly, but with everything you've been working through lately, something about this piece seemed really profound to me, and I just wanted to offer whatever support cyberspace communication can manage.

[kristenv]

Take Susie Sunshine's cue and go buy yourself a Barbie now. Seriously. See what it means to you today.

For me it was one of those Indian dolls with a papoose they sold as souvenirs all over the place in the 70's. I wanted one terribly but don't think I bothered to ask...I think I assumed I'd be ignored. Anymore, I really like buying those for myself.

And I concur with my predecessors, you really are wonderful.

[Jaycee]

I won't get into all my Barbie stories,(we all have jillions I'm sure.)I just want to know...are you still friends with Molly?

[Missy]

I feel your pain.

However, and I don't know why, but I can't get the thought out of my head of the Michigan Bell Lesbian Mammoth Barbie sounding like Samuel L. Jackson.

And then I start thinking about Snakes On A Plane.

So sorry to steal any kind of meaning from your post. It was beautiful.

[Jennifer Welch]

Long time stalker, first time poster...
Your Barbie was my Cabbage Patch Kid as a teenager. (Sounds silly I know but I didn't like dolls as a kid but always wanted one of those frickin Cabbage Patch Kids.) Every gift giving Holiday I asked for one and my younger step-sister got it...hell almost everything I asked for she got. After a emotional break down 5 years later at 17 I finally got the Cabbage Patch -- didn't they realise it was too late?

[midwestgrrl]

I had that model Barbie too. Spastic Barbie, more like. As I recall I blacked out one of her teeth.

I had lots of other Barbies though. If I knew you I would give you one. Or maybe just leave it outside on the devilstrip (what we call the treelawn...I don't know) for you, like certain toilets you know!

[Dodi]

Most of my Barbie stuff was second-hand from a slightly older neighbor girl. She wanted to be a beautician, so most of my barbies had crew cuts and pierced ears. She broke pins and stuck them in the ears. But she also made a lot of clothes and furnature for the dolls. I had vinyl bean bag chairs, spool tables and groovy sundresses.

I don't mean to make Chris jealous, but I loved my sunshine family and didn't care that they were the wrong scale to play with Barbie. The baby was the coolest doll in the world.

When I asked for a cabbage patch kid my mom had a friend make one. She thought it was so much better, she couldn't see that the fake ones had that wierd nose which clearly marked them inferior. It lived on a shelf too.

Melissa, I'm sorry your dad was an abusive jerk. My dad threw things too. What an asshole. I'm glad you had friends like Molly.

[mickey glitter]

Thank you for the laugh this morning, although I'm sorry your dad was so mean. I had some rather cut-rate Barbies, too and they sucked. Never did have a Ken, so I chopped off my Marie doll's hair (Marie of my Donny and Marie dolls, courtesy of my grandparents and complete with shiny purple clothes...a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll, indeed) and made her cut-rate Barbie's boyfriend...erm...girlfriend.

[linka72]

I'm not sure if it was supposed to be, but I swear, that was one of the funniest posts I have ever seen!!!
Hang in there girl, I've been there. My mom bought be a 'barbie' from a rummage sale once. It had a little tam hat on and SHE WAS BALD AS HELL underneath. I called her Cancer Barbie - It was mean but hell, I was a child.
Later in life she bought my little sister a real Ken but he had a baby with him. We call him Single Father Ken..oh the laughter

[MommaK]

I had SuperStar Barbie and tried to cut her hair. After that she was Mullet Barbie and never wore her gown again.

Great post!

[Lucinda]

Malibu Barbie was my first. But I think my parents got a fake, because her hair was totally coarse and couldn't be combed and her tan lines started peeling. Horrifying!

Congrats on your Perfect Post Award!