Childhood Transgender Barbie Project

I've told some of my friends about this. I've wanted to write about it for a while because it is so funny. I wish I still had her/him, but I must have sold her/him in a garage sale (which is what I did with everything I owned as a kid...I needed that 50 cents!).

Anyway, this is the deal. When I was little, my friend, Tennille, and I liked to play "Cinderella" with my Barbies. However, I only had 3 of them and no Ken. So, we needed a Prince Charming, see? One day we had one of the best ideas that has ever occurred to a couple of 9-year-olds.

Now, I had this one Barbie that had lost the little swivelly part that is attached to the neck and makes the head turn (I know you know what I'm talking about. Who hasn't pulled Barbie's head off at least once?) Since she didn't have this particular part of her doll anatomy, we had to shove her head down onto her neck which gave her an extremely square chin, a weird, deformed face and an abnormally short neck.

Well, she was the chosen one. This is what we did:

First order of business: breast removal. We went to my dad's shop, i.e. the building in the backyard where all his tools were, and found the belt sander. I am sure that we were not even supposed to touch it, but ignoring that fact, we turned it on and sanded those boobs right off. Because I was a child, I mistakenly thought that Barbie was a solid mass of plastic. I was, of course, wrong. She is hollow, people. Now, Man-Barbie had to large holes in her chest.

Next order of business: new hair-do. We cut it all off. She looked like she had bad hair plugs. Prince Charming could NOT have bad hair plugs, and the horror of that possibility lead us to our next epiphany.

I had this knock-off Barbie that that I got in Knox City at a store called Perry's. It probably cost about a dollar. This fake Barbie was completely bald and came with three wigs. Of course, I had already lost two of the wigs (and the doll). The only wig that I had left was the blond fro. The wig was made of a thick plastic half-sphere. It looked more like a round, skin colored hat with hair coming out of it than an actual wig. Well, we glued it to Man-Barbie's head. He now had a blond fro and a permanent abnormally large noggin with an 1/8 inch ledge rising up off of his forehead (and around the rest of his head). It also covered his ears to half way down.

Viola! We had our Prince Charming! Unfortunately, we could never get the feet to stand flat, as opposed to the perpetual high heel stance. I could never think of any tool in my dad's arsenal that could fix that.

I wish I had a picture of this thing. It was like my Frankenstein's monster of childhood. It was probably the ugliest doll that ever walked the earth. Needless to say, though, Cinderella loved him and lived happily ever after! Every time.


Addendum: I also gave one of my other Barbies a short haircut and then proceeded to dye its hair black with a Marks-a-lot marker. That one I still have. Next time I find it, I'll take a picture.