Barbie's Neurological Disorder

The story of Barbie began in the 1950’s, as Ruth Handler created a toy based on the German doll Lili, a shapely fashion doll made of hard plastic with a wardrobe available for purchase. Handler designed a long-limbed beauty for Mattel and obtained the patent in 1958. A star was born.

Roughly 25 years later, my older sister found me with several of her coveted toys spread out before me. A few were still the same dolls she remembered having put away into the blue Whirlpool bag the day before while others had undergone a significant transformation.

As a young girl filled with ambition still un-quashed by the harsh realities of the real world, I believed that I would one day make millions as a neurosurgeon. In between PBS documentaries of brain surgeries performed on epileptic patients, I practiced my future career on my sister’s best girls. First was Barbie, then Barbie’s best friend followed by Skipper and Skipper’s best friend. I snipped their blonde hair nice and short and removed their dresses and fashionable accessories.

“I’m afraid this is really going to hurt,” I’d gently say to them, practicing my all-important bedside manner. Then would be the draping of the blue cloth napkin I’d stolen from the linen closet and cut a hole in the center of, all the while explaining my convoluted knowledge of sterilization to the patient. “This is so I know where to operate, and to protect the rest of your body from the blood spatter when we saw through your scalp.”

I have to give it to Barbie, she took it all very well.

The screams of my sister pierced through the walls as she looked down upon the gruesome scene of naked, shorn dolls lying strewn about with synthetic hair in clumps about the carpet. She tore Skipper from my hands as I screamed that she wasn’t done yet and needed to be wheeled straight into recovery. “You’re killing her!” I screamed as I struggled to tear her from my sister’s grip.

My father came barreling onto the scene of naked dolls and his two daughters wrestling on the floor. He tore us apart and told us to settle down or, as he was so fond of saying, ‘The shit’s going to hit the fan.” I paused briefly to consider the image and wondered why he’d throw shit on a fan and further contemplated its origin. Before I knew it, my father was standing in front of me with the napkin/surgical drape dangling from one hand and a wad of blonde hair in the other.

“Daddy,” I whined, “I was operating! Skipper has Epilepsy and now she’s killed her! MURDERER!” I pointed at my sister who sat on the floor cradling the doll and stroking its spiked scalp.

I spent the rest of the day in my room, crying and secretly contemplating my next move, and it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I ever saw another of my sister’s Barbie dolls. We emptied my parents’ attic of our old playthings and out came the blue Whirlpool bag. As my mother pulled out a spiked-haired Skipper we all had a good laugh, except for my sister who snatched her away and straightened her musty smelling dress. “I really thought she was going to make it,” She grinned, “but neurosurgery is a risky procedure.”

“It’s a real shame she didn’t survive,” I consoled her, “Because later on I was going to give her a spectacular boob job.”