Cabbage Patch fear

Like every child in 1980's, I had a Cabbage Patch Kid, courtesy of my Uncle Joe.

The interesting thing about this fact is, I never really wanted one. Sure, it seemed like every girl in America wanted, needed, and had one or two... But I never really cared much for them. 

I didn't like playing house. I never enjoyed playing "mommy & baby." I preferred action figures, or even dolls that you could project unto, like Barbie or Strawberry Shortcake. Baby dolls did nothing for me.

However, I did enjoy having Cabbage Patch Kid as a playground status symbol. Owning one made you fit in, and I wanted to fit in with the girls in my class so desperately. So I played with it in public. At home, it just sat on my vanity and stared at me.

It was a little disconcerting, to say the least. However, it went from weird to downright horrifying not soon after.

Now, something you must know about my mother, she loved reading trashy tabloids. The weirder the headline, the better. So it was not unusual to find the latest copy of the National Enquirer or Weekly World News in our shopping cart at the local Key Food. 

On one such trip, I found myself at the checkout with my mother as she glanced over the latest "Newspapers." A blurb on the cover of the National Enquirer mentioned a Cabbage Patch Kids collector. I found that interesting and picked it up to check out the article while we waited.

I wish I hadn't.

The article went on to describe an obviously looney woman who could not have kids of her own, who had taken to "adopting" a slew of Cabbage Patch Kids and turning a room in her house into a nursery for them. She went so far as to purchase a baby monitor and schedule "feedings." She insisted they weren't really dolls, but real children that pretended to be dolls when people were in the room, but she could hear them laugh and play through the baby monitor.

That's about as far as I got before we had to leave, so I put the rag back on the shelf, but my 8 year old brain kept churning that information. When you don't watch them they come to life!

Later that day I sat in my room watching my little 13" black and white TV, avoiding eye contact with the doll. It seemed like every time I'd turn my head, I would swear the thing moved. Any tiny noise was blamed on THAT doll, as I began to call it in my head. I would lower the volume on my TV and strain my ears and swear I could hear it breathe!

That night as I lay in my bed, I was overcome. I couldn't sleep. If I slept THAT doll would come to life and kill me. I was certain.

So I got up and did the only thing I could thing of to do. I grabbed the doll and snuck into my parent's bedroom and stuck the doll in my baby sister's crib.

My rationale? If it wanted to taste blood, it could start with my sister. That would give me a head-start.

I never told my parents that, though.

In the morning when they found the coveted Cabbage Patch Kid in my sister's drooling mitts, I said I was giving it to her as a gift. My parents thought I was being a generous and loving big sister. I smiled and accepted the praise when in reality, I was nothing more than a coward, afraid of a doll, willing to sacrifice my sister to save my own hide. 

And the funny thing is, I'm still creeped out by Cabbage Patch Kids, to this very day.

Michael Jackson dreams

The year was 1984, and I was an 8 year old caught up in the Michael Jackson craze.

There was no escaping the mania. Thriller was *the* album. Kids of all ages were either wearing or begging for red leather jackets covered in zippers. Knowing how to execute the perfect moonwalk on the playground won you more accolades than owning the latest, greatest toy. My elementary school even piped in Weird Al's "Beat it" parody, the aptly titled "Eat it" in the cafeteria during lunch.

My mom even fell victim to the craze and I found myself wearing a red leather "Beat it" jacket that winter. I wore that jacket with pride, over my Michael Jackson Thriller cover iron-on T-shirt, my vending machine Michael Jackson pendant, while carrying my Michael Jackson loose leaf binder to school.

I thought I had it made, until I saw the commercial on TV for the LJN Michael Jackson 12 inch fashion dolls. Forget Ken. Barbie needed Michael Jackson!

I told my mom.

This wasn't something I wanted. This was something I needed! I needed this doll. Every kid I knew needed this doll.

My mom understood.

Christmas was coming up and she said I'd done extra well in school and that I earned the doll. I just had to choose which Michael I wanted.

He came in three styles if I remember correctly: Thriller, Grammy Awards, and Beat it.

I choose Beat it. I liked that particular jacket best, and I did already have a child sized one I wore every time the temperature dropped below 70.

I remember going to several stores with my mother looking for it. Seems I had been correct: everyone needed this doll. They were no where to be found. If you got lucky and found one, it was Michael wearing the sparkly military jacket he wore to the Grammys. No one wanted frilly Grammy Michael. You wanted cool Zombie Thriller Michael, or young street tough gang banger Beat it Michael.

I'm not quite sure how, but my mom managed to find a Beat it Michael with the help of her brother, my uncle Joe. Of course, I was unaware at the time. All I was told was that Santa brought me *a* Michael, but not which one.

To make thing worse, Santa dropped off the present in early December, where it sat under the Christmas tree... Taunting me nonstop for weeks on end. I do believe that was the longest wait of my young life. Every day I woke up I would go to the tree, pick up the wrapped box and look at the label with my name on it. Every day I had to force myself to put it back before my mom caught me.

Those endless days were absolutely nothing compared to Christmas Eve though. That was the epitome of a slow torture: 24 hours that would never end, that dragged on and on, no distractions since it was too cold to play outside, nothing on TV, and that brightly wrapped box with my name on it.

The night before, I had the most vivid dream. I dreamt I opened the box and played with my new Michael Jackson doll.
Michael went camping in Barbie's camper and hung out with John Travolta. We ate lunch together. We built a snow fort outside in our matching red zippered jackets. It was magnificent.

Then I woke up and I realized I had been dreaming. The sense of loss I felt was overwhelming. I had to go out and look at the box to remind myself that, yes it was a dream but that I still had a chance to live it.

When the time came to open presents, I grabbed the Michael box and set it aside. I was going to savor the moment. I was going to open all my other presents first to get the crud out of the way so that nothing would taint my Michael moment.

I remember getting a plush Gizmo from Gremlins that year, which I was pleasantly surprised by. I loved Gizmo. I also received a Cabbage Patch doll. Cabbage Patch dolls were the hot ticket item that year, and I fear what my uncle must have had to do to get me one... only to have me set it aside, unimpressed. Xavier Roberts' golden goose was nothing compared to the power of "The Thriller," as Vincent Price was fond of telling me.

Finally I ripped open Michael. He had the Beat it outfit on. I was overjoyed.

I don't think I came out of my room for the rest if Christmas break, as Michael and I were busy. Michael enjoyed wearing Ken's fashions and traveling by Barbie camper. Sometimes Barbie wore his jacket.

That was an awesome Christmas vacation.

Interlude: Just as good

Before I was legitimately old enough to understand the true economic state of my family, I knew we were in no way rich.

I knew by comparing the toys I did have to those of a rude little kid about three houses down. His name was Charlie, and he had every toy you could think of. He would come outside with his toys and play in his fenced in front yard, while the rest of the children on our street rode by on our hand-me-down bikes like gawking construction workers admiring a lady with too short a skirt.

Now, Charlie would on occasion choose one of the many admirers and invite them through the gate to partake of his many wares. The rest were "allowed" to watch them play.

I was never chosen, because I had committed the unforgivable sin of being born a girl.

Charlie did serve somewhat of purpose in my life, though. He served as toy catalog. If he had it, it was available at stores. I just could not for the life of me figure out WHAT store.

Whenever my mother would go shopping, she always took me along. It helped that I was rather well behaved. My mother was a bargain shopper, so generally when shopping we would stop at multiple shops. Among them: Alexanders, Odd Lots, ABC (in Cityline), Woolsworth, and several Oriental market type stores that carried stereotypical Chinatown like wares.

Although I was usually allowed to wander in the toy sections, the toys I found were usually either a few years old (and heavily clearanced) or they kind of looked like the toys I was looking for, or were in foreign packaging (read: knock-offs.)

On the few rare occasions I would find something I wanted, like say Voltron, my mom, smooth salesman that she was, would point out that the Go Lion Force Robot thing that was not diecast, but most probably blow molded was "just-as-good."

Although I never quite fell for this trick, I got the message loud and clear, "We can't afford it, get the knock-off or go home without a toy."

In my imagination, whichever knock-off I happen to be playing with, was of course the real thing. We all had grand adventures, Plastic Lion Robot, Googly-eyed Godzillaish Lizard, Bo and Luke Duke (on clearance from TruValue), their ride, a broken Bespin cloud car I found in the neighbor's trash one day (which I still own), Remco Warlord (instead of He-Man), Decker, and a Rambo lookalike from Remco's GI Joeish line.

Of course all the fun would come to a screeching halt, the day Charlie rode his brand new BMX by my house and loudly made fun of my cheap toys.

I started playing in my backyard more often after that.

Charlie was a jerk.

Super Powers Superman

When I was a child, my choices of after school TV viewing were pretty limited. Sure, you had GI Joe, Transformers, Voltron and Thundercats, but that was a measly 2 hrs of cartoon viewing! Unlike today where there are entire channels dedicated to cartoons, we had to make due with the many syndicated live action (read:mind numbing) reruns of Diff'rent Strokes, Three's Company, and of course, the deathbringer of afternoons... MASH. To this day, I cannot stand to hear the first few notes of "Suicide is Painless" without having a panic attack. MASH signaled the end of a fun afternoon and the beginning of the nightly parental confiscation of the the TV. Oddly enough, MASH made for a pretty good segue into the 6 o'clock news.

Now, not all live action syndicated shows were bad. In fact one stick out rather predominantly in my mind: 

The 1966 Batman TV show.

Every afternoon, Adam West would don the cowl, and Burt Ward would slip on the pixie shoes and for a half hour (and sometimes a full hour) would battle evil in beautiful technicolor!

As soon as the show was over, it seemed like every kid on the block would flood the stoops and streetcurbs, all with the same thought in mind:

"I wanna be Batman!"

"But you got to be Batman last time! You be Robin."

"But I won't want to be Robin."

"I'll be the Joker." 

"My porch is the Batcave."

"My bike'll be the Batmobile."

And so on until dark when mothers near and far would stick their heads out the front door and declare, "DINNER!"

That simple 20 year old show captured the imagination of every child I knew. So much so, that on Saturday Mornings, when The Superfriends would come on, Batman seemed to be a shell of the man we spent the week with. 

One day, while watching TV a rather curious commercial caught my eye. Kenner introduced me to the Super Powers lines. Finally, I would get another chance at Batman and Robin figures! (I had experienced a setback a few years previously in attempting to acquire a  Mego Magnetic Batman and Robin set. But that is a story for another time.)

They even released a Batmobile. It didn't look like the REAL Batmobile, but any car Batman was in automatically BECAME the Batmobile.

On our very next shopping trip to Cityline for various clothing related things, we stopped into the Woolsworths. Now, Woolsworths was a welcome retreat after spending hours upon hours watching my mother buy underwear and socks for the family. Woolsworths had a toy section I could go and browse in. After a few minutes, my eyes went straight to a locked display cabinet. (This was one of those "I need a salesman to open the case so I can buy it" things.) From behind the glass Batman and Robin seemed to wave at me. 

To say that it took one minute to locate my mother and drag her to the toy section would be to exagerrate. I do not think it took that long.

Normally I was not a begging sort of child. In fact, I never really ASKED for stuff. I was always rather subtle. The usual "Oh mom, look how neat that it," and then I would go through the work of explaining exactly HOW neat the item was, and that it's probably alot of fun, and well you get the point. I'd try to get my mom to offer to buy it for me. I would feign humility saying how it was unnecessary and make her insist. In the end, I would come home with the toy.

This was not one of those times. I downright asked my mom for Batman and Robin. And the Batmobile. In hindsight, I do believe the Batmobile was the dealbreaker. I was asking for too much at the end of a day where too much money had already been spent. So I got the "Mommy would buy it for you if she had the money" speech. Lord, I hated that speech. That may be why I never came right out and asked for things. I just didn't want to take the chance that I would get that speech.

But all was not completely lost. At seeing my apparent disappointment, my mother said she had enough money to buy one. I could get one at thet very moment, and as soon as she saved some more money we would come back and I could get the other one.

I wasn't about to fall for that again. I'd fallen for that line before with other toys. Sure, we'll come back... and by that time there wouldn't be any more. So my choice was either get a Batman without a Robin. Who would Batman call "Chum"? I could get a Robin without a Batman. Who would rescue Robin when he was tied up? Or I could get nothing.

And suddenly a third choice looked out at me from behind the glass: Superman.

Superman didn't need anyone. He was Superman! 

When the sales clerk came over unlock the case and he asked which one I wanted, I calmly said, "Superman." My mom was rather perplexed. "I thought you wanted Batman and Robin." 

"I want Superman more," was the only answer I could come up with.

We did return to Woolsworths during our next shopping excursion. I went straight to the toy section and there were no Super Powers figures at all.

And once again, I went without Batman and Robin.