If your family has so many things that you can’t put them in a big house all at once but have to store some of the things in the attic, or the basement, or the garage, or even in the shed way back behind the main house, you probably have heard of American Girl dolls.
These dolls cost a lot of money, because a girl who has a house with lots of storage space buys an American Girl doll and her neighbor who lives in a big house with an attic and a three-car garage sees the American Girl doll and wants one too. These girls take their American Girl dolls to school and every girl with a big house and lots of storage space wants one too. Then a girl from North Carolina takes her American Girl doll to visit a cousin in Texas who has a ranch with acres and acres of storage space. She orders one too. The Texas girl takes her American Girl doll to New York where a girl with lots and lots of warehouse storage containers buys an American Girl doll too.
Soon everyone wants an American Girl doll including mothers who really wish they were little girls again instead of a workingwomen who spend all day correcting mistakes made by their male bosses with IQs lower than room temperature who make twice as much money as they do. If you are a working mom playing with an American Girl doll is much better than going home to mow the grass, trim the hedges, balance the check the book, take your daughter to ballet lessons, and sit through your son’s T-ball game that lasts 6 hours and 23 minutes until being called on account of lightening. After that you cook dinner, do you kids’ homework, read a bedtime story out loud (three times), kneel for bedtime prayers, give hugs and kisses all around, and don’t forget to leave the hall light on and crack the door a little wider. Then you clean the house, feed the parakeet, and take the dog for a walk.
Finally, you get to put down your cell phone which you have been talking on continuously since you walked out the office door, and you head for the computer where you read group emails warning about people who will drug you and steal your kidneys. In your email, you find a request for people to decorate a table at Central Baptist and a message asking how much to spend on a group gift for Mary. Another email mentions that “because of the hectic schedules we face during the next two months with people moving, new committee demands, and of course, the holiday season, it seems it might be best to postpone our Alert Citizen project until January.” If you are lucky, you will get a slide show about Vacation Day. You can always count on finding 53 new recipe messages in your email. Then you discover email instructions on voting for the city ordinance forbidding cooking on Saturday night that is enforced by the police who put yellow tape around your kitchen if you try to cook. And you always get useful public announcements in your email such as the one from the Mental Health Association with instructions on how to get in touch with them:
“If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly; if you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you; if you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want, stay on the line so we can trace your call; if you are depressed it doesn't matter which number you press, nothing will make you happy anyway; if you have short-term memory loss, press 9—if you have short-term memory loss, press 9—if you have short-term memory loss, press 9; if you have low self-esteem, please hang up our operators are too busy to talk with you; if you are menopausal, put the gun down, hang up, turn on the fan, lie down and cry. It won’t last forever.”
After reading 586 emails, you compose witty replies to answer all your messages, not forgetting to forward 376 of the emails to your group lists. When you go to bed you dream of American Girl dolls.
Grandmothers know deep in their hearts that cuddling an American Girl doll is better than playing bridge with boring people who talk about their sore knees, and the size of their kidney stone, and how no one will operate on their back that hurts more than sitting in a nest of fire ants because the doctors say that their spine makes a pretzel look straight, and how their grandson is so handsome that he has waited tables on Hollywood Boulevard for eight years expecting an audition soon, and how fifty-five church friends went on a charter bus trip to Nova Scotia that was a lot of fun except Betty got lost and was picked-up by the police when they found her wondering the wrong way down the middle of a one-way street and how Al spoiled their fun at lunch everyday by yelling, “Let’s eat at Hooters. Let’s eat at Hooters” and how Sharon embarrassed all of them by asking if anyone had some extra Viagra that she could give to Richard.
You can see why all grown women like the American Girl dolls. But not men. They sit home in big chairs, drinking beer and eating pizza while watching the Dallas Cowboys on television because the Cowboys can win, and saying bad things about the local college football coach because his team can’t win.
The America Girl catalogues go to homes where people have more things than they can find storage for. The little girls can’t wait to get American girl doll catalogues that are expensive not even counting postage, but are worth it because they have slick pages, color pictures, and stories about each doll.
When the little girls get their American Girl catalogues, they stop playing with their other toys. When the mother finds a discarded toy in the washing machine or the shower or maybe in the oven, she calls to the daddy, “Father please come and put this toy in the attic.” And at half time, the father puts it in the attic behind last year’s Christmas tree ornaments and no one ever thinks of the toy again or even misses it.
As soon as the little girls have looked through the American Girl catalogue, they call their grandparents because they know that their parents are too busy putting things away to listen about American Girl dolls. If the grandfather answers the phone they talk real sweet to him but not very long and then they ask to speak to their grandmother who they call Mimi or Gigi or Nana or Nan-Nan or something else only little girls call Grandmothers and they say:
“Mimi, guess what the American Girl Doll Catalog came today. Did you get yours? Oh good! Aren’t all the dolls just beautiful? I like Felicity the best. Please, please grandmother can you give me Felicity for Christmas? Actually, I was thinking that because Christmas is so far away that maybe you could give me Felicity for my birthday on December 19. Would you please?
But grandmother, let me think. Thanksgiving is coming even sooner. Maybe you could give me the doll for Thanksgiving Day instead of the footballs grandfather gives to girls when he should give them to boys only.
I would have so much to be thankful for if I had the American Girl doll for Thanksgiving. Mimi you are the best grandmother in the whole wide world especially when we play with the American Girl doll together.
You know what Mimi? I’ve been thinking again. Because Thanksgiving is about Turkeys and Pilgrims and Indians, maybe you could also give me the Indian doll, Kaya. Look on pages 44 and 45. Isn’t she just adorable? And look. See the food Kaya eats. We could get that too. And then we could learn all about what Indians eat everyday and for thanksgiving too. Kaya’s food only costs $20.
Kaya will need a bedroll. See it at the bottom of the page. It only costs $24. And look, look. Oh, I’m, so excited. Aren’t you excited too Mimi. Just think of the fun we could have together. See her Tepee, and Kaya’s Mare—Steps High, and her saddle, and look Steps High has a foal called Sparks Flying. It only costs $38. Oh, this is exciting. Kaya has a dog, Tatlo. And Tatlo has his own gear. I could read all those books at the bottom of page 44 and really learn about Kaya and other Indians. Wouldn’t that be great? We could read them together, Mimi. I love you so much, Mimi.
Mimi, I’ve been thinking. You know what? Felicity could ride in her Colonial Carriage to visit Kaya. And look two dolls can fit inside the carriage and Felicity can take Kaya for a ride and Kaya and Felicity could spend the night in Kaya’s tent. Look at Felicity’s holiday outfit. She could visit Kaya in that outfit and she could show it to her. And Kaya can show Felicity her Indian dress and maybe they will decide to change clothes and fool everybody who they are. And Felicity can ride Steps High. Oh, Mimi, we will have so much fun playing with them.”
And what do you think the grandmother says? Of course, the grandmother says, “Yes dear. I will send it to you as soon as I can order it for you.”
All grandmothers who have credit cards, don’t think about the bill that totals $998 not including taxes and shipping. They don’t think about spoiling little girls or closets and attics full of toys. And they don’t think about the father who has to get an unsecured loan to build a bigger house just to store all the things grandmothers with credit cards give to their granddaughters. This is called free enterprise. Aren’t we thankful?
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