Birthdays & Barbies

Today is my Niece’s 6th birthday. There are positives and negatives to celebrating a sixth birthday I guess. The positive is that she can actually tell you what she wants for her birthday; the negative is that she may not just be happy with any old thing like she would have a couple of years ago.

I asked her about a week ago what she wanted for her birthday and she rattled off a few things, the main stand out being that she wanted a toy cat. That seemed pretty straight forward, so that was my purchase of choice.

Naturally, me being me, I forgot about shopping for her present until today, so at lunch time I headed over to Kmart, which is the only decent sized store anywhere near my work.

After 15 minutes of scouring the shelves for a toy cat, I was forced to concede that they didn’t have any, and that my laziness had left me unable to fulfil her birthday wish. This left me with the dilemma of what would make a suitable replacement for a toy cat.

Another 15 minutes of window shopping still had me drawing a blank, so instead of trying to find something that she would approve of, I decided I would just give in to my inner child and purchase something that I had always wanted for myself when I was her age. It seemed slightly selfish, but sensible – after all, don’t all six year olds like the same sort of things?

Having an older brother, I spent most of my time playing with toy trucks and running around in our sand pit, so there weren’t a lot of girly toys that I wanted. But what always stands out in my memory is the yearning I had for my very own Barbie car. I think it was a combination of the older brother influence with the car, and the girly side of me that wanted something for my Barbie dolls. Plus, back in the 80’s, Barbie had some seriously good taste in cars. I dreamt of owning this awesome corvette:

To go with my Dream Glow Barbie & Ken Dolls:

Ah Ken - what a Dreamboat!

So with that in mind, I headed to that one toy aisle that smacks you in the face with its pink sparkliness, and found the Barbie dolls.

It took me a little while to realise I’d found them, because I kept looking past the trampy, hooker-ised dolls to try to find Barbie - It took a minute or two to twig that they were the Barbies. Sadly, 20 years have not been kind to Barbie. I guess after the divorce with Ken she got a little desperate and has had to whore it up a bit. I chose the least whore-ish Barbie, but even she still looks like she bought her shoes at a stripper supply store.

Those moveable joints must
make pole dancing a breeze

Sadly her car isn’t quite as cool any more either. She’s gone from a shiny metallic Corvette to something that looks a lot like a hot pink convertible Smart Car:

I can only assume she had to sell the Corvette to pay for her many, many surgeries.


Despite my disappointment in the changes to Barbie since my childhood,  I grabbed the doll and the convertible and headed to the checkout. After all, little girls love dolls, and they love the colour pink, so what is there for my Niece not to love?

As the check out chick was scanning my items, she said to me 'Oh, someone's a Barbie fan!'
'Yeah,' I said  'Aren't all little girls Barbie fans?'
'Not these days.' she told me authoritatively 'No, not anymore.'

So it appears my theory on all little girls wanting the same things may be slightly flawed.
I guess we'll know at 6 o'clock tonight. On the plus side, I might find myself in permanent possession of a Barbie car, thus fulfilling my childhood dream (if in a slightly sluttier way than I imagined at age six).