by Teresa Milbrodt
I never asked for one when I was a kid, but my mom and aunts gave them to me as Christmas gifts birthday parties because they thought Barbie was what every girl should want, but dressing those plastic arms was a pain because of spaghetti thin sleeves and skirts so tiny they got lost or chewed up by the cat, and after the wrapping paper was thrown away I had millions of things that were more fun to do that stuff a plastic arm into another prom dress, like give the Barbies mohawks with blunt scissors, or draw on mustaches and facial hair and tattoos on their plastic skin with a ballpoint pen, because Barbie with a skull on her naked chest was a lot more interesting, and before New Year's I had my own Barbie freak show with the Bearded Lady Barbie and the Tattooed Woman Barbie and the Fire-Eating Barbie that didn't work so well since the match burned her lips and hair but then she became Elephant Man Barbie, so I set up shoebox stages where my Barbies mimed performances with twisted and too-thin limbs, and I tried to get the neighborhood kids to see my show by trooping them past the tree and charging a dime for a ticket and a cup of cocoa, and I don't know what calls my mom got after that but she said I shouldn't do it again and I heard her ask my dad if I should see the school counselor, but even then I knew Barbie was the one who needed help with her schizophrenic career path and inability to do anything without wearing heels, I saved her from that boxed-in fate, she needed new horizons, to get that uncombable hair messed up and fight the real fights in a glass ceiling world where women get eighty cents when men get a dollar, even then I knew we needed Liberation Bra-Burning Bi-Curious Ultra-Hip Barbie who could massage her feet and waist and boobs into something realistic, a Barbie who could narrow those blue eyes into fighting slits and be a plastic babe who meant business, like Grassroots Organization Protester Barbie picketing the Capitol and getting arrested and calling Ken to pay bail, Put it on the card, hon, it's only plastic, and there's a world to poke and prod and shave and melt down and shape with our small hands into something that looks a hell of a lot better.