Barbies at Bedtime

            When I was younger, my cousin and I would wake up in the middle of the night, just to play with my Barbie’s. We were about the age of six, and we would wake up around eleven or twelve, just to have Ken fall in love with Barbie. They were staying with us for a week or so, and we thought we were being so sneaky! We would go and get my Barbie dream house and play with our favorite ones. I had two Kens, so we named them our boyfriends, and came up with a cute story about how they met, and how they started dating and fell in love. We used to have a makeshift temple, to have them get married in, and eventually we would have a Kelly doll become a child to them. We had no idea that we were being watched.

            One night, as we were playing with my Barbie’s, the story was that my Barbie’s horse had died, so our plastic figurines were crying, and getting ready to go to the funeral, when we heard some giggles coming from the stairwell. We got up, and peeked into the stairwell, and saw my sister and my cousin, when they saw us, they just erupted into a huge laughing fit. They thought that playing with Barbie’s was childish, and that we were immature for playing with Barbie’s. They then went on to ask if they could join us, to which we replied, “No, you made fun of us.” My sister can’t handle being told no, so of course she went upstairs, woke my mom up, and told my mom her side of the story. I then got in trouble and was sent to bed, with my cousin in tow.

            They later told us that they had been watching us the past couple of nights playing with our Barbie’s, but hadn’t said anything because they were scared we would find out and then stop playing with them, which would make them lose their entertainment for the night. We were quite embarrassed to learn this, and so the next night we decided to spy on them for a change. Listening to them talk about boys and talking about the best technique to scratch each other’s backs was not interesting in the least. We were too young to like boys, and scratching backs just wasn’t like what it is today. All we wanted was some dirt on them, because they got us in trouble for playing with our Barbie’s. My mom made it a point to sit downstairs to make sure that my cousin and I wouldn’t sneak into the basement to play with our Barbie’s because the next day we would always have a “Big day” ahead of us. After she would send us off to bed after our many attempts to get downstairs without her seeing us, we eventually gave up. Those were the end of my Barbie playing days.