I was probably about five years old. I think my brother was about three. I asked for a real Cabbage Patch Kid Doll. I had a pale substitute sewn by my moms and it was pretty good, except his feet were square and she had to make all his clothes because his body was too long to fit any of the store bought kind. He was bald and I didn't really care about him because he was home-made. All the girls in Kindergarten brought their Cabbage Patch kids for show and tell and they were real and I was jealous. Soooo jealous. That bitch Melinda Murray liked to rub it in my face too.
I think every young girl has an arch enemy that they meet very early on in life. Melinda was mine. We hated each other on sight. Well, I didn't. I was willing to try this new "sharing" thing my mom was so big on. Going to school, letting other people use my crayons, eat my paste, all that jazz. But Melinda's mom maybe didn't mention the whole sharing thing to her. First day of Kindergarten, I asked her if I could share the flannel board �truly making an effort, you see� and what did she say? No. In fact, she said "NONONONONONONONONONOOOOOOOO." So I backed away slowly while giving her a funny look and we've hated each other ever since. In Grade three, she called a black boy at school a "burnt marshmallow" and I punched her in the face and broke her nose and we both got in trouble. And who got blamed? Yep. And then she blamed me for stealing a bunch of math books in Grade four. I think all my teachers had a good laugh at that one. I mean, me? Math? Me stealing math books? Turned out, she took them home to play school with her little sisters. And she had to apologize for stealing in front of the whole class. I think it was about fifth grade when I beat her out for the lead in the school play for the third year in a row when I finally realized that I had bigger fish to fry.
ANYWAY.
Cabbage Patch Kids. I wanted one. Keep in mind that this was the year of the Cabbage Patch Kid. Everybody and their goldfish wanted one. I wanted mine to be a real Cabbage Patch Kid so badly that I wrote my name on his bum. You will recall that Xavier Roberts, creator of these ugly-ass dolls, would sign his name on their little tushes. BRANDING BABIES on their little pink asses! Nope. Nothing wrong with that. Geeze. They also had adoption papers and pretentious, hyphenated names. My home-made one was supposed to be "Otis Lee" the ring-leader of the kids. Somewhere along the line, I acquired a second home-made Cabbage Patch Kid. This one had a hunk of black hair and went by the name of Mindy-Sue. Mindy-Sue. I ask you, who names a child Mindy-Sue?
I pestered my mom every day for three months before Christmas. I wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid, dammit! She would always gently point out that I had two already. And an abundance of carefully made clothing. And two doll beds. And a doll stroller. And Jesus Christ , could I have been any more spoiled?
Now, many years have gone by and I am much older and much wiser. Like, for instance, now, I realize exactly how much work and money my mom put into making these dolls especially for me. And how did I repay her? By telling her at every opportunity that I got that I waaaaanted a reaaaaallll oooooonnnnnnne!!!
Looking back at what a rotten kid I was, I can't believe I got anything at all for Christmas. Ah well, bygones.
I recall that my mom held out forever on the issue of getting me a REAL Cabbage Patch doll. Finally, it was my Grandmother who broke down and bought me one for Christmas. She had "official" Cabbage Patch clothing and "real" adoption papers which I insisted on framing. Gawd. I was such a little tyrant! Her name was Sonja-Felicia. *eye roll* and she was a preemie, which meant she had a little tuft of blonde hair sticking out of her head.
Of course, not two weeks after I got her, she broke. And yeah, it kinda might have been my fault. Those of you who are familiar with the Cabbage Patch Kid form are asking yourselves "How in hell could you break a Cabbage Patch Kid?" Well, by throwing it as high as you possibly could and then trying to catch it, but missing so it landed on its hard head on the frozen mid-winter Saskatchewan pavement. That's how.
And of course, putting a band aid on a cracked head? Does nothing. I believe my mother even phoned the company to see if we could get a replacement head. You'd think something like that would be common-place. I mean, I don't know about any other little girls, but there were three of us in my neighborhood and we all ruined our dolls. My friend Audra's doll's head was bitten through by her dog, and the girl across the street cut all her doll's hair off so it left a red yarn mohawk. Somewhere, there is a landfill full of the mouldering, mutilated corpses of Cabbage Patch dolls.
For whatever reason, we couldn't get a new head. So my mom went down to the craft store and bought a fake Cabbage Patch Kid head and somehow used a darning needle to give it the same tuft of yellow hair. Yeesh! The things you do for your bratty kids!
So, did I learn my lesson? Not really. I mean, not until twenty-odd years later. But still, I feel oddly compelled to give my mom a big ol' hug. Which is really all I can afford to give her for Christmas. It's gonna be thin this year. I actually think I can afford $25 for each member of my family and my best friend and whatever small amounts of chipping in is involved with the presents for my Grandparents. I plan on picking out some nice, inexpensive cards and writing them a little something.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment of the 12 Days of Christmas! And maybe a hung-over "my God, did I really drink all that?" post on Sunday, the day after the staff Christmas party.
Tunes: The Sleestak Guide to 80s music, post-punk, and neo-retro sent to me by the fabulous, witty, articulate, handsome, all-around-great-guy, Green Sleestak of Fametracker fame. He's the shit, yo! Three CDs!
Tube: Buffy reruns. I'm at Amends right now, which is nice because it's soon gonna be Christmas and all.
Text: God. So many books to read it isn't even funny. I'm in the middle of Joshua, Then and Now, by Mordechai Richler, Smila's Sense of Snow by *I think* Peter Hoeg, a really great novel called Motherless Brooklyn about a shady detective from New York who has Tourette's, and a book I'm reviewing for work called All Hell Can't Stop Us, which is a historical account of the On To Ottawa Trek and the subsequent Regina Riots. Very interesting.
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