Green eyes lead to dolly’s death;
Twice a dolly loses breath.
One girl delights, while one girl cries;
Each one’s truth, the other’s lies.
“You are SUCH a liar.“
“I’M the liar?“
It is hard now to imagine, but dolls used to do nothing. No crawling, no digital burping.
One day, however, along came the doll of the future: The first doll to move “like a real baby”.
A baby who’d had Jack Daniels:
“Ma-ma. Oooh, Mama!“
The doll’s head would loll and droop and slowly roll around on its shoulders.
All you had to do was wind up a giant round crank on its back and ignore the giant loud cranking sound as the giant spring inside unwound.
And because all the moving parts were so giant, so was the doll. A shout-out to Ideal for their chutzpah in christening her “Thumbelina”—no bigger than a thumb.
She was two armfuls of HUMONGOUS.
A Thumb With Elephantiasis
The first year Jumbolina was marketed, I received her as my Christmas gift. Despite her typical German doll face—squinched and angry-looking—I was thrilled. I lugged her huge hulk with me everywhere.
This D#mned Doll-Baby Weighs a Holy TON.
Yet, by my birthday in January, she was nowhere to be found.
Days and then weeks of searching failed to find her. I was desolate. My family cared not a whit.
Only when the spring thaw came and the snow melted from our back yard was Thumbelina’s location revealed:
Her plastic head and limbs were distributed at far separate parts of the yard. Her empty cloth body lay limp at the base of a tree trunk, with her tossed stuffing looking like old dirty snow on the ground.
I Felt Like Someone Had Taken Out MY Stuffing.
What had happened? My brother spilled the beans:
My green-eyed younger sister Megan had taken my treasured Thumbelina, swung her by one leg, and bashed her repeatedly against the tree trunk until her helpless (yet zaftig) body burst asunder.
Her firmer limbs had scattered to seek shelter from further abuse.
Meggie did not deny her evil deed. Yet my parents did nothing. Nor did they replace my doll.
W. T. F.?? (Where’s Thumbelina Fairness?)
Worse, for Megan’s May birthday, they presented to her the later, greater Baby Thumbelina.
No creaky, cranky, monster, this was a wee-sized bundle of huggable, head-turnin’ love.
This Was The Last Straw. Baby Thumbelina Was No Bigger Than a BABY Thumb.
It is two weeks post-Meggie’s birthday. Visualize with me:
An older two-door car. To get into the back seat, you have to flip the front seat forward.
Your little sister is climbing in the back. While the front seat is forward to let her pass in front of you, there is a gap at the base of that seat.
A gap exactly the size of a Baby-Thumbelina head.
Mere justice mandated that I match one head to one gap before slamming that front seat to its full and upright position. Which is when a wholly-satisfying crunch restored order to the universe.
.
Recently, I learned that by the time of her birthday, Megan had entirely forgotten that she had destroyed my doll first.
All these decades, she has carried the memory of the day her big sister tore her treasured brand-new baby Thumbelina from her loving arms and crushed its skull, for absolutely no reason. And laughed maniacally when she began to cry.
Each time I think of this, I am, at first, overswept with just a moment of deepest shame.
I Feel REALLY Guilty For How Mean I Was…
Then I laugh my #ss off.
It’s a Good Thing My Sister Loves Me.
The Rashomon effect is a term that has been used by a number of different scholars, journalists and film critics to refer to contradictory interpretations of the same events by different persons, a problem that arises in the process of uncovering truth.
The phrase derives from the movie Rashomon, where four witness’s accounts of a rape and murder are all different.–Wikipedia
Duel to the Dolly Death
2014-03-23–Added some pics, spaced out words a little better.
The Last Half 
Jenni
/ 2014/03/19Sounds a little like my sister – she would always borrow my clothes and as she was really rough on them I didn’t really like it – if I had something new that I hadn’t worn yet I would say this is the one thing you can’t borrow until I wear it. She’d borrow it, ruin it I’d yell, she’d cry and hide in her room. Years later when I wanted to use something of hers a friend told her don’t let her since I never wanted to share my clothes when we were young. Her friend then went on to lecture me about how bad I’d made MJ feel for borrowing my clothes and that she thought her big sister didn’t want her to have nice things. Perception is a weird thing at times.
LikeLike
Outlier Babe
/ 2014/03/19I’m sorry you had to endure that. It must have stung. It took me almost fifty years to learn how to let most of those situations not get to me. No one outside of a marriage or family has the first clue what the inside dynamics are. Outsiders should keep unsolicited opinions to themselves, but of course they do not. I have found this to be successful: “You’re a dear friend, but you have no idea what you’re talking about, so let’s move on and talk about something else now, shall we?–said firmly, but smiling all the while. Only the rudest of foes will continue in the face of that challenge.
LikeLike
Jenni
/ 2014/03/19Very true – each family has their own dynamic and it just isn’t worth it trying to get others to understand the fact that you react to some things quickly going from naught to hundred in a sentence. The don’t get that it’s because you’ve had years of the same situation so now you no longer bother with the middle of the argument.
LikeLike
Outlier Babe
/ 2014/03/19BTW, we were a “family” of six, and that same sister is the only one I now consider my family–she is also my true best friend. We were both terrible children, but it was not our fault–it was the fault of our abusers. It has been a great experience getting to know her these past years.
LikeLike
Outlier Babe
/ 2014/03/19Oops–need to modify that–my mom and I have had some coming together these past couple of years and do have a loving relationship, although it cannot ever be what it should have been.
LikeLike
joeyallgood
/ 2014/03/25I love your childhood stories. It’s like learning how Satan got his horns…
LikeLike
Outlier Babe
/ 2014/03/25Th-th-thank you?
Actually, I am entirely ass-less now: When I read your comment, I laughed it off again. It’s a good thing we’re friends. (or are we?) And shouldn’t that be “her” horns (puny mortal, quake in fear, etc., etc.)?
LikeLike
joeyallgood
/ 2014/03/25When I read the story, the music from The Omen cued in, and I saw this little sprout of evil seeing an opportunity to bring darkness in the world.
I chortled heartily.
And yes, we’re friends (I think? Yeah!) so anything thing that offends, you should take with this —> .
That’s a grain of black salt.
LikeLike
Outlier Babe
/ 2014/03/25Careful, Joey: Sprinkle too many of those from out of your own black soul, and your own blog will lose its edge.
LikeLike