Of Barbie and Action Figures

"Pack away your dolls," I said. And just like that, Big B and the Little Guy whip their heads around, at what looks like a sweeping 180 degree angle. Like a scene from the exorcist, eyes glaring, they hiss in unison, "They're not dolls....They're...action figures." Creepy. I could never imagine my sister C, channeling Linda Blair if Barbie was called an "action figure." Little Guy informs me that action figures are not dolls. They have arms and legs that move. They can do all kinds of things. I just rolled my eyes. Hmmm. Whatever.

Flashback to the seventies. My sister loved Barbie. She had the whole kaboodle and some. My link to Barbie was the lone Skipper doll I owned. She was like Barbie's poor relative. The only piece of clothing she possessed was the lime green two piece swim suit she came in. There may have been a life jacket too.

Last year B (C's daughter) passed the Barbies, Headless Ken (His head was taped on. It was lost in a pretend skiing accident) and his brother Plastic Hair Ken, their huge house, and car to the Little Guy. Along with the dream house and Corvette came a wardrobe straight out of the late seventies and early eighties. There was no way in hell that the Little Guy was playing with the Barbies. So they stayed in the box they arrived in. Headless Ken and his brother Plastic Hair Ken were another story though. They moved into the huge pink house and started hanging with the Action Figures. Before we knew it, the Kens had not only taken over the house and car, the Little Guy had taken to squeezing them into Barbie's shiny tight wardrobe. Big B and M were slightly distressed at seeing the Kens and Action guys tooling around the flat wearing tight pants, tube tops and boas. The Little Guy was oblivious to the fact, that the Action Guys had transformed into the Village People. This was just all too fun for him. Afterall, Action Figures don't come with a furnished house, car and accesories.

Unfortunately peer pressure and gender issues doomed the Kens. It was impossible for me to push the huge pink house into the closet and we couldn't paint it black (as requested). The final straw came when the Little Guy's posse came for a visit. Later that evening, the Little Guy asked me to give away the Barbie gang.

(Enter: Playmobil.)