Chapter 12 - "It's Exploitation!" : A heated fight over American Girl Dolls

 Chapter 12 - 

This morning on the bus, Lily and I unintentionally caused an argument between two women about American Girl dolls. 

 I don’t really know enough about American Girl dolls to have a strong opinion one way or the other.  I have an opinion…its just not a strong one… meaning – I don’t really care that much....certainly not enough to get involved in a fight on the bus -

One thing I do know about them is that they are expensive and knowing my daughter, it’s not going to be long before they land on her “must have” list, and she’s one of those kids that heard the phrase “collect them all” on a commercial, and she intends to do as she’s told.  “But Mama, the commercial said to COLLECT THEM ALL!” – Anyway, its one thing to spend a lot of money on a doll, but its the accessories for the dolls that are really out of this world  – you can buy them anything from crutches to eyeglasses to a baby grand piano (for $150…not kidding)  To me this is madness, but if there are people out there who have that kind of money and want to spend it on a piano for a doll, then who am I to judge?  (Especially because I'm sure I'll have to eat my words when my daughter is a little older and I'm knee-deep in such madness.)

American Girl also has something called the Doll Hair Salon, which I should probably just take my daughter to if for no other reason than I’m sure I could have a really great blog entry after that experience.

I wonder how much these women drink before their shift starts:

That said, I'm not writing to promote or trash American Girl dolls, they're super cute and I'm sure my daughter will love them when she's older and I'll have to make reservations for doll brunches and doll ear piercings and then I can start a blog called "Crazy Sh*t I Do With My Kids"...but, in the meantime, and for the purposes of this blog, I'll get back to what went down with the crazies on my bus.

I got on with the kids and actually scored 2 seats right away (yes!).  Diego is in the carrier on my lap, Lily is next to me, and on the other side of her is Woman A (we’ll call her Apollo Creed).  Lily was carrying a doll with her, (not an American Girl doll, one of her “LaLaLoopsey” dolls). 

  Apollo says to Lily “what a funny doll, what is her name?”, at which point Lily gets a little scared and turns to me and says, “YOU tell her” – so, feeling like an idiot I turn to the woman and say, “That’s Mittens Fluff-n-Stuff”.  Apollo gives me a small courtesy laugh and I’m hoping that’s the end of our exchange for the morning, but of course it’s not.  She wants to chat with Lily, not me....  She tries again, “where did you get that doll?  Did Santa bring her??” – Lily again turns to me and says, “YOU tell her”, so I tell Apollo that Lily got the doll for her birthday from her Grandmother.   I’m hoping that after not one but TWO “YOU tell her’s” from Lily that Apollo will give up on the chats, but nope…she’s persistent.  So, here comes attempt #3 -- Apollo: “Does your Grandma like American Girl dolls?”, which was a tad random.  I’m not sure why she would ask or care whether or not my Mom likes American Girl dolls and I’m not sure what that has to do with the LaLaLoopsy doll that Lily was holding, but I guess she was just riffing on doll questions at that point. Lily looked at me like, “I have no idea what to say to this woman” and again said, “YOU tell her”. Not waiting for our answer, Apollo then launches into a monologue of all things American Girl Doll…maybe she works there or something, I don’t know –– but, she told us about all of the wonderful services and things that AGD has to offer, (this, incidentally, is how I know that there is a doll hair salon…Apollo told me) – She also told us that you can take your doll to a tea party or to brunch, ("...but you have to make a reservation!" she said in a sing-songy voice) and you can even get her ears pierced. I had to look that one up to see if it was actually true, and she’s right.  You really can get your dolls ears pierced, for $14.  It even comes with a "tip sheet for home care" - which I really want to get just so I can see what the hell tips they have for "home care" of a dolls ears.

  Well anyway,  when Apollo got to the part about ear piercing, that’s when Woman B stepped in  (we will call her “Rocky”) – Rocky says LOUDLY, “It’s Exploitation…THAT’S what it is!”  I wasn’t aware until that moment that Rocky was even paying attention, but she had apparently heard enough.  And quite honestly, she was a little too heated right out of the gate in my opinion. Maybe she had other stuff going on, I don't know -

Unfortunately (and I'm very sorry -- this really sucks from a "story-telling" standpoint)  I missed most of the point-counterpoint that followed because right when it started to get good Lily got bored with the whole thing and started singing LOUDLY (for a kid who gets so shy when a stranger asks her a question, she has no problem belting out Under the Sea RIGHT when I’m trying to enjoy a good fight)   - From what I COULD hear they mostly went back and forth about the positives and negatives of AGD’s.  Apollo was more on the defense, whereas Rocky brought some serious anger to the table. Apollo never said why she knew so much or cared so much about AGD's, and if Rocky ever stated exactly why she was so passionately angry about the whole thing, I certainly missed it – I have to say I’m annoyed that it was because of us that the fight started in the first place, and I didn’t even really get to enjoy it….

Lucky me, I can't believe I was seated in between the two women who would actually take this so seriously....