The Barbie Experience Part 1 of 5

The Original

The year was 1959. My mother and I walked to the drugstore to get cigarettes. That was the first time I saw her.
She was beautiful, she was perfect. “Mommy, mommy look!” I tugged at her jacket sleeve for her attention.
My mother brushed me off with the usual remark, “Oh that’s nice dear, but we don’t have time to play. Come along now.” I kept on with her strength overpowering mine. I either abandon my arm or play along; either way I was defeated. Why didn’t she see the importance in it? The single most beautiful thing in my entire life; she had to be mine.
I tried to show her to my mother after we left the drug store, to explain to her that she was perfect in every way. I needed her. She responded, “You have plenty of dolls at home Catherine. You don’t need another.” She placed the cigarette in her mouth and lit a match then grabbed my hand and continued back towards home. But I couldn’t let her go. She was too beautiful, too perfect.
I went home and flipped through the penny saver, I knew that she had to be in there and if I could save up enough I would buy her myself. I ripped the page out of the paper and kept it in my pocket then rushed to my room. I pulled the folded piece of black and white paper out of my pocket and I gazed at her.
She was like nothing I had ever seen. She wasn't like my other dolls. She was much smaller, like a doll for my doll. And made out of rubbery plastic instead of linen and cotton balls. She had beautiful blonde hair just like my aunt Suzie. But she was prettier than aunt Suzie. Her hair in a low pony tail swished to the side with perfect ringlet curled bangs. She has on a black and white stripped bathing suit and white sunglasses clasped in her right hand. Her lips were glossed in a ravishing violet with perfectly polished fire engine red finger nails. She was like the models in my mom's magazines; super models. She could even stand on her own; her legs were strong and sturdy. She came in a beautiful cardboard box, not like my other dolls wrapped up in shoe boxes with smelly reused tissue paper. Her name was written across the top of the box. I knew that she would be my favorite doll. That I had to have her. She would be mine.
My very own Barbie doll.