The Barbie Hierarchy

Well, I have survived Destination Imagination Overload Saturday only to find out about 9 pm tonight that I had a nasty note from the Divine Consign people. I had marked some generic tags for DVDs, kids' clothes, etc. and they were writing me to tell me that I had better be specific on my tags or else. Although this sale is not until the weekend of February 20th, we have to enter our tags early. Once they get to 33,000 items (and they wre at 27,000 on Thursday), that is IT. You cannot enter more items or change your tags. Now I don't know about you, but when I do a garage sale I don't tag everything three weeks ahead of time so this system puts me under considerable stress. Anyway, I went through the whole damn house and pulled some videos to sell, and made my kids try on a laundry basket of summer clothes before bedtimes (like it? hate it? Next!!!) I am pleased to say that although I got to spend NO time relaxing with my kids watching Robin Hood (and Robert was upstairs doing real work for which he does not get paid any overtimes--ah, the joys of a salaried position!)......

Well, anyway, I am pleased to say that I got all my tags completed tonight, although I did decide about midnight that I'm not going to deal with the Beanie Baby issue this time, so I pulled all those tags and I will be putting those bad boys back in the closet. (I could make some joke here about not knowing the sexual orientation of my Beanie Babies for sure, even though they spend a lot of time in the closet, but I won't).

So, then I came downstairs and started putting Barbies in Bags. In fact, maybe we will have Barbie in a Bag for dinner tomorrow night. Is that like Chicken in a Bag? No, it's SuperBowl Sunday so I think I will stick to the Brisket I had planned, and the cranberry/pecan/banana bread now that I actually have all the ingredients for, assembled in the kitchen together, after 5 days of trying. I hope the Bananas in the Bag have not gone moldy or it will be banana bread minus the bananas--maybe i can feed the Bananas in a Bag to the Barbies in the Bags.

By the way, the bags are ziplock bags and I am putting the Barbies that I have fixed up in the bags for storage. The kids don't want to sell them now that I have cleaned them up and worked on them all week; in fact, Miranda wants the Barbie MiniVan to stay and Amelia wants the whole Barbie mansion, so I guess we will be back in Barbie hell soon enough. And the moms who come in the door and see the big pile of Barbies (and a few Kens) say, "Why would you want to sell them??? They are so PRETTY!!!!!" Why indeed.

Only because I am drowning in CRAP in this house and have very little money and tons of stuff sitting around that is not being used (these Barbies spent the last year in my husband's office and the attic), but OK, why indeed would I want to sell anything?

Have you ever tried to dust a house full of Barbies?

Also, it occurred to me as I put the Barabies into Bags that there is a Barbie hierarchy that corresponds roughly to life. We actually have five kinds of Female Barbies. I'm not counting the Kens (men are definitely subordinate in the Barbie world) and I'm not counting the Kellys (the little girl dolls that represent the children, or the Tommys, the little boys that are subordinate to the Kellys). And let's not count the McDonalds Madame Alexander dolls or the dolls of many lands from Target, or the teenager doll that's left over from the carnival stuff that I sold years ago. Or even the "Disney Barbies," who look like Barbies but are cheaper, and have a larger Princess head on a Barbie body. They look a little deformed in truth. All of these others are dolls but they are all second fiddle or worse next to BARBIE.

A REAL Barbie will fit into one of five categories in our household. We have Princesses (especially those from the Barbie movies) who are the glamour girls, the non-working girls at the top. They are the movie stars, of course, and they are well known to fans of Barbie World. The movies that they come from include Swan Lake Barbie, Rapunzel Barbie, Twelve Dancing Princesses, Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus, and Princess and the Pauper. There are others such as Barbie Muskateer that came out this year and that we don't have, but we already have five or six of these movies and most of the dolls (I drew the line at buying all Twelve dancing princesses but I think we still have 4 of the dolls from that film, plus possibly the prince). The Barbie movies are great to put on and watch with the girls if you want to take a nap. In fact, I'm not selling these movies, and I may keep them until I have grandchildren! The plots are truly insipid and they play extremely bad versions of classical music. It's so bad and so bowlderized that they don't even credit the original composer sometimes except to say "Based on Tchaikovsky") (OK, know I mispelled that!)

I understand that in the Barbie Muskateer movie, which I have only seen part of, they actually sword fight with a rhythmic gymnastics ribbon. Someone gave it to one of the Rapier Dons that I know as a joke. I wish I could tell you this is the worst thing you will find in a Barbie movie, but that's not true. So, the Number 1 Barbies are Princesses and the stars of these movies.

I am not sure how to rank the others but the other categories are Fairytopia Barbies or Fairy Barbies (not intended as a slur on gay people, because these Barbies really ARE Fairies!) Also we have a few Ballerina Barbies and a few Mermaid or Mermaidia Barbies. Finally there are a few Modern Barbies such as Dr. Barbie.

The Fairy Barbies are the creative spirits and the wild children. They wear cool makeup and have lots of colors in their hair, and a few even light up (one of these is called Nuclear Barbie by my husband). They all have wings. Their hair is blue or pink or sparkly. They have tatoos and body paint, and scanty clothes. In fact, gentlemen, this is truly the Barbie of your dreams, and the one who would be most likely to grant you sexual favors if she could.

Ballerina Barbies are the Madonnas of the Barbie world. I don't mean Madonna the singer. They are sweet and pretty. They are on a pedestal. They would never say mean things about anybody. And they are kind of bland and boring, and of course, mostly blonde.

Mermaid Barbies are the opposite of the Ballerina Barbies. I don't want to call them whores because, like the rest of the Barbies, they are not anatomically correct and not responsible for their actions (since humans put them into whatever poses and positions they desire). However, the Mermaids are of course the Sirens. They would be the ones enticing men to their doom. One of my SCA friends sent around a great piece about, would you rather be a whale or a mermaid,and made a great case for being a whale because whales are universally loved and have great family groups, whereas Mermaids just kill men. Point taken.

Finally, there are the Barbie Modern Girls. They don't make very many of these but they are usually made for that parent like me who wants the girls to see themselves as "Career girls" through their dolls. Don't try to use Barbies like this--it doesn't work. Who wants to wear a working girl outfit like a vet or a doctor or a lawyer would wear when you can wear a ball gown? So we have Doctor Barbie (if they have made a Lawyer Barbie I haven't seen her yet). We had a Vet Barbie and we had a Midge who was pregnant and the belly could come off (I think we have lost the belly though so she's not pregnant any more.) She came with a husband, of course, because Barbies are NEVER unwed mothers. Shame, shame!!! In fact at the time she was controversial so I'm sorry that we have lost the belly--she might be worth something on Ebay some day. I think we also lost the kid that came with her and her Kenish husband, or maybe the kid is in the box of Kellys and Tommys. Oh well, she and Ken can adopt a few of those. Unlike in the real world, there are plenty of Kellys and Tommys available for adoption.

In fact, I can't remember which blonde Barbie even is Doctor Barbie, so Doctor Barbie is out there hidden in a ball gown with all the rest. It makes a difference because Doctor Barbie's little white pants are very tight and they just won't go on the ass of every single Barbie!!! Some of these Barbies must have been eating too many donuts down there in Dad's office! I tried to fit these pants on three or four of them and I finally gave up and used ball gowns instead. Easy to put on, easy to take off. Difficult to go to the bathroom in, but then remember, since they aren't anatomically correct, the Barbies NEVER have to go to the bathroom. And there is not ONE toilet in the Barbie house!!!