poor claudia recently had a week of toy tragedy. we came home one night to find the child-version, easter-themed, non-caucasian barbie she’d gotten in her easter basket (you think that was easy to find?) half-eaten by danpung. claudia’s sobbing was terrible, but even worse was how she looked at the chewed pile of legs and said, with a truly pathetic attempt at positivity, “her SHOES are still okay…”
this barbie-eating thing has happened before (the precious “halloween barbie” — claude’s first caucasian barbie) and when that happened claudia asked me to just throw her away, and i did. but this time, there was so much of the little girl doll LEFT — well, less than half, but all the… thinking parts?.. claudia and i both have a paralyzing degree of anthromorphization going on in our heads (i had to draw multiple happy faces on beat-up envelope recently, after it had surfaced from a pile and claudia became sad because “nobody has used it yet”), but that’s not the reason i wanted to save this little-girl barbie. the idea that a human without legs — or useable legs — should be thrown out, is not a good one for our family.
why?
memie!
claudia and béla’s only aunt — my sister — uses a wheelchair. so it seemed important to point this out to the agonizing (maybe a little ostentatiously agonizing) claudia. i said, “gee, i know YOU’RE sad about this barbie being eaten, but imagine how SHE feels! now she has no legs, AND she has to worry that someone is going to throw the rest of her in the garbage!”
claude didn’t want to let THAT happen. we talked about what a little girl with no legs might need. a flurry of tiana band-aids later, Easter Torso Barbie was safely “hospitalized” on a kitchen shelf, awaiting… yes… her wheelchair.
there are more and more toys i want for my kids that require me buying from third-party “collectibles” dealers on amazon. the african-american styling bust (lovingly known as “christie head”) was one of those, and out of all the aa styling busts i found available, i found myself paying more for the darker-”skinned” one. literally — the very light skinned “not white but not black” ones were cheapest, medium-hued skin was medium-range price, and undeniably black was most expensive. (and in pristine vintage packaging.) well, we tore that packaging apart and had tons of fun. even béla loves christie head. (and i will be paying out the nose soon to buy béla a “vintage” spirograph set, because the ones they are manufacturing these days are total shit.)
at some point in the nineties, the barbie people made “share a smile becky”, who sits in a wheelchair. all i needed was the chair, but we got becky too, and we upgraded her to “doctor”. or maybe she’s a home aide. i don’t know for sure. but i don’t think i have to consult with my sister — who is not very into disability “culture” — to know that naming this doll “share a smile becky” is a little disgusting. it suggests, and encourages, that the BEST thing that disabled people can do — what THEY have to SHARE with the world — is their pleasant gentle SMILE. my sister and i aren’t that different in temperment. knowing this, do you want to suggest to memie that she should do us all a favor and share her smile with the world?
she might share a smile, or she might key your car for parking in the handicapped parking spot at the mall. you just don't know.
anyway, we have the wheelchair, and “doctor” becky, in her unfashionable sporty clothing (because that’s what disabled people wear) and hideous shoes (which seem kind of realistic — ankle support can be nice if you do your own transfers in and out of a chair). both kids are thrilled — béla loves to push the wheelchair, and claudia is mostly interested in “doctor” becky’s hair.
in the same week that Easter Torso Barbie revealed her true smile-sharing purpose to us, claudia bounced her harlem globetrotters basketball into traffic and watched it pop under the car of a VERY frightened, and then pretty angry, driver.
once again, more wailing, wailing claudia. but we almost immediately ran into friend and artist kate mundie, who had many suggestions for what we should do with the popped ball. here’s our harlem globetrotter hanging flower basket!
there’s a bright side to so many things!
