The Doll House

All I ever wanted was a Barbie Dreamhouse.

Unfortunately, mom was the only one supporting me and Nagymama with her baby toy assembly-line job, so an item this extravagant seemed excessive. Even at a young age, I was very aware of finances, so I made due with the cardboard boxes she brought home for me from Pathmark.

I was actually quite content with cutting windows into the sides of the boxes with my safety scissors, and draw carpeting and artwork all over the inside of the houses. My aunt was even kind enough to give me scraps of foam and fabric from her upholstery shop so I could have a deluxe dream-bed in my cardboard mansion.

But I still yearned for a Barbie Dreamhouse for one concrete reason – I wanted Barbie to stand up straight. The boxed my mother got me were meant for 2-Liter Soda bottles, so they were about 10 inches tall, whereas Barbie is 11.5 inches tall, so she had to walk around the house with a hunch. Needless to say, my dolls sat around and “ate dinner” lot. It’s amazing that Barbie and Skipper didn’t get fat.

I spent most of my childhood days fabricating elaborate cardboard houses, and Nagymama would spend most of her nights tearing them down. And of course, since we both slept in the living room, it was very difficult to hide my mansions from her. I tried to tie the boxes together, tape them, glue them – nothing would stop granny from disassembling them every night when I went to sleep and piling the boxes neatly in the corner. Once I even tried to stay awake so she wouldn’t tear it down, but then I gave in to the threats of the “Wooden Spoon.”

So, one day, I looked out the window and saw a lady from church talking to my mom in the driveway. A young lady sat in the back of the church lady’s car, playing some sort of handheld electronic game. I could hear their muffled talking.

The church lady said that her daughter, Lisa, had outgrown out of her clothes and toys. I remembered her daughter from when she and I were in Pioneer Girls (like Girl Scouts, but they sell religion instead of cookies.) I couldn’t believe the young girl in the car was Lisa; she was once a quiet little mouse that always had a Barbie doll in one hand and an inhaler in the other.

My mom agreed to accept the donations and dragged a few black garbage bags onto the steps. She smiled as the church lady pulled away but then ran inside to make a frantic phone call.

This was my chance! I tried to sneak out the front door so I could peak into the bags, but Nagymama nabbed me and told me that if I went outside, the gypsies would steal me and put me into their caravan. Just then, my mother hung up and went outside to see what the commotion was about.

They shooed me in, closed the door, and continued to argue on the front steps. I ran to the side window and pressed my face against the glass to get a better look just as they started dragging the garbage towards my mom’s spicy-mustard-colored 1979 Dodge Station Wagon. As Nagymama lifted one of the bags into the trunk, I saw a shocking piece of triangular pink plastic poke the bag.

A dollhouse!

And as quickly as a saw it, it disappeared into the depths of the monstrous car. Mom and Nagymama promptly walked through the door, and before I could protest, my mother announced that we would be going to my aunt’s lake house for the weekend.

I stopped in my tracks.

Now everything made sense; the toys were a SURPRISE! I deduced that I wasn’t supposed to SEE the dollhouse because they were going to bring it to the lake house and let me set it up there so Barbie could have lake-front property. THIS made sense! I pretended that I didn’t see any of the bags for fear they would take them away from me for ruining the surprise, so for almost a week, I waited in anticipation of my dollhouse.

…To be continued…