It might not come as a surprise that since I act like a pretty princess, I have been obsessed with Barbie for the better part of my life. Even as an adult I collected Barbie, and it wasn't until Mattel completely changed Barbie's face and body within the last few years that I dropped my membership in the Barbie Collector's Guild.
In the mid-80s, one of my favorite Barbie dolls was Western Stampin' Barbie. Not only did she come with a Barbie name stamp to autograph her fake glossy headshots, but she also had a button on her back that made her eyes blink when pushed. I don't know exactly what happened, but my brother was somehow involved in an incident that ended in breaking Western Stampin' Barbie's eyelids, rendering them unblinkable. He tried pulling out Western Stampin' Barbie's eyelids so that she would at least be able to see, but it gave her this freaky wide-eyed, "gonna' kill you in yer' sleep" kind of expression.
I freaked out and had nightmares about Western Stampin' Barbie getting in a horrifying accident and losing her eyes. Consequently, my mom thought she would try to make this expression less scary for me by whipping out a Sharpie and drawing several thick black eyelashes onto Barbie's face where the movable upper eyelids once sat. The effect was quite the opposite, leaving Western Stampin' Barbie with this homicidal face somewhere between Linda Blair and the creepy eyelash guy in A Clockwork Orange.
From that point on, we referred to Western Stampin' Barbie as Psycho Barbie and every night I made sure she was always buried in the bottom of the Barbie pile so she wouldn't come and hurt me while I slept.
Psycho Barbie was eventually mummified in surgical gauze and entombed in a homemade sarcophagus for a sixth grade project on Egypt. To this day, she lays rest in thirty pounds of gold plaster with Egyptians painted on the top. Nobody dares unwrap Psycho Barbie for fear of some kind of curse and/or zombie attack.
Flash forward to last night when I was getting ready to go out, slipped with the eyelash curler and ripped out over half of the outer eyelashes on my left eye. To make matters worse, I panicked and grabbed for a fake eyelash but the glue got in the open rip wound and left me feeling like I had a black eye. Not only does it still hurt today, but I look like a sideshow act and I'm hoping I won't have to wear fake eyelashes for the next two months.
I thought maybe the whole incident was karma coming back to taunt me for continually making fun of fake eyelashes worn during the daytime by a women with whom I sometimes come in contact. Then my brother left me a Facebook post that summed it all up better than anything else:
"Revenge of Psycho Barbie."
You ski. I ski. Hold on while I make this awkward.
10 years ago
3 comments:
OUCH. Hope you are healing up nicely. Seriously, OUCH.
I feel bad that you ripped out your eyelashes, (thank God you're under 40 and they will grow back in). However, I have to laugh at the story. Psycho Barbie Karma....LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Awesome post. And guess what -- I had (and still have) the same Barbie! Her plastic eyelid actually broke off at some point, so her winking (or blinking) doesn't really work anymore either... but I never had Psycho Barbie nightmares and trauma, thankfully. I also still have the matching Ken. He was actually made of two pieces so that he could ride a buckin' bronco and flop around correctly. His torso and legs are connected with a rubber band that by this point is probably about to rot through. I don't remember his fancy name, but my mom immediately labeled him "Mr. Swivelhips," and Mr. Swivelhips he remains. I wonder if he'd be any good at Latin?
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