You Can Take the Girl Out of the Glasgow Scottie Band...

Ben Ashby had a Rainbow Brite doll for sell and he didn't even know it.

Ben, a former student who owns CHANDLERclark, a website company specializing in vintage and folk art collectibles, is a pretty phenomenal young man - interesting, creative, self-aware, and artsy (but not in a pretentious, "I'm so cool because I study existentialism and stack trashcans on one another and proceed to title it 'the secret to life,'" sort of way). Nonetheless, he has an inescapably noticeable, and rather unfortunate, flaw...Ben is not a child of the 80s. He probably had no idea what I was talking about when I discussed the way in which Lindsey, all on her own, so arrogantly criticized Kristi Melton's Axl Rose impersonation. Ben wasn't familiar with Debbie Gibson. His mother probably has no pictures of a 3rd grade Ben, sporting a rat-tail or mullet, tucked away in dust-covered photo albums. Therefore, when I posted a comment, equal parts classy and creative, under the picture of previously-mentioned doll (if I'm not mistaken, it was something along the lines of "love me some Rainbow Brite"), he initially responded with confusion, and then with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql3qvz4yjfo&feature=related (sorry, embedding is not possible; you'll have to copy and paste). YouTube had allowed him his only possible access to my childhood world - a world filled with multi-colored ponies, Care Bear stares, Nanny's green and white leg warmers, and Smurfette's narcissism.

You know you're getting old when you start saying, fairly often, "they just don't make 'em like they used to." It does not matter if talking about cartoons or clothes (I'm convinced that a pair of decently-fitting jeans no longer actually exist), the undergirding belief is simply: "things used to be better." [Related grammar issue: Never mind that "they" and "them or 'em" are nondescript space fillers, most grammarians now agree that ending a sentence with a preposition is occasionally okay. While there is no set "rule," basically one should just stick with the "would normal people talk like that?" policy. Ex. "What did you step on?" works (as opposed to: "On what did you step?"); "where is it located at?" does not - "at" is completely unnecessary].

SO, this is me being old. Last night I pilfered through Mom's attic, looking for some of my favorite toys from childhood. While I did not find the coveted Rainbow Brite doll that I loved so dearly, I did round up some of my other playmates and time wasters. The 80s were a glorious era.
Bet you can't guess which one Leigh Ann probably dressed and which one I worked on.
The forerunner to "Juicy" pants. Left to right: The Cabbage Patch doll that could go in the bathtub (ironically, she had big dirt spots on her face); Belinda, my first Cabbage Patch doll, is wearing one of the dresses that a local woman made for my and Leigh's dolls; Abagail, my My Child; and Sabina...guess what her stomach felt like.
Care Bear Cousin and Baby Minnie. Minnie was what I used to hold when Mom would pop the stys I often got around my eyes. Ahh, good times.
Tickles and Giggles. This is arguably the scariest doll ever made. I loved her.
Grover was always my favorite Sesame Street character. "Otis Lee, got no hair, but he don't care, good ole Otis Lee" (we would often substitute "Curtis Lee," convinced we were incredibly witty).
Even though I often called home about 9:30, asking Mom or Dad to come pick me up from friends' houses, I was rather fond of my overnight bag.
The "Princess of Power" herself, She-Ra.
We always took really good care of our toys.
Strawberry Shortcake and her naked friends.

And, finally, one of our favorite toys, best displayed not with still photography, but with a demonstration...