The Murder Of The Dolls

Tonight I'm going to share a funny story.  Well, morbidly funny.  In fact, it's kind of a horrific story, but I bet you laugh.

Several months ago, my parents sold the house they had lived in for 40 years.  My brothers, sisters-in-law and I did all the packing and moving, and in the process, we came across some treasures from childhood. Among the loot, there was Ken's 4-H trophy, Mark's Star Wars figures and Commodore 64, and my dolls. Years ago I had asked Daddy to get my dolls out of the attic so they wouldn't melt and ruin.  I'm not sure what I thought I was saving them for.  I knew they weren't collector items.  I played with my dolls.  Maybe I was still holding on to the idea that I would pass them on to someone one day.  So, on packing day, I found the box in the hall closet, carried it to the living room, sat down in the floor, opened the box and prepared for a walk down memory lane.

As I pulled each doll from the box, I realized that they were in pretty bad shape.  Like I said, I played with my dolls.  Not only were they not collector items, they weren't even something to be passed on to the most wide eyed little girl.  Their hair was matted and tangled, or missing all together.  As I removed each doll, I would say her name and state her special ability, such as, "Oh, it's Cathy Quick Curl.  She had hair you could curl with a little curling wand.  And, it's Peaches the Puppet Girl.  She had little puppets you stuck in her hand and when you pulled her string she made the different puppets talk.  This is Me Too Baby.  I think I named her that because she looked like the baby sister in a book I had called Me Too.  When you laid her on her back she made a little cooing sound and her eyes closed, and when you sat her up, her eyes opened. Oh, and look, it's Baby Tender Love. I loved her.  This was my third one.  She drank a bottle and peed." But, I noticed that not only was Cathy Quick Curl's hair mostly gone; all of Peaches puppets were missing and when you pulled her string, she did a sort of Darth Vader impression; Me Too baby's eyes were stuck closed; and Baby Tender Love, whose mouth used to make nursing motions when she drank her bottle, had a split lip showing metal like a little Terminator baby. When I pulled out the one legged Ken doll, my brother Mark exclaimed, with a look somewhere between horror and disgust, "Dolls are so creepy!"

I reluctantly packed the poor misfit dolls back into the box, and looked sadly at my mother who had been watching me closely through this whole process.  I really think she was seeing the little girl Suzi who dearly loved every one of those dolls and played with them constantly.  When I announced that I didn't think any of them were worth saving and were probably just trash, mom said, "But you can't just throw them away.  That would be like murder!"  She had me there.  So, I promptly carried the box out and loaded it into my car, with the intention of taking them home to throw in the garbage in order to save my mother the trauma of murdering my childhood babies.

Upon arriving back home, I carried the box of dolls into the house while Scott looked on in disapproval. While I had made a virtual pinkie swear to resist the urge to load up my car with lost treasures, here I was unloading a box of beat up babies, along with a big bag of my great-grandmother's needle point, a couple of children's books (including the above mentioned "Me Too" book which I loved so much as a little girl) and some clothes and shoes dating back to Mom's shop-a-holic days that I rescued from her closet.  Over all, I thought I held up my end of the bargain pretty well.

The box of dolls sat stacked in my guest room for several weeks.  Finally, on a ruthless cleaning day, I announced that the dolls just needed to go. But, I was still having trouble with simply throwing them in the trash, remembering my mother's use of the word murder.  Then I had the bright idea to just put the whole box up by the road and see if anybody took them. I guess it's a fact of life most places, that if you want to get rid of something you simply place it at the road and it will disappear.  So, we carried the box out and set it between the driveway and the road.  Scott even opened the lid to the box so passing cars or pedestrians could get a good look at the merchandise.  That's when it really got creepy.  There was a beat up cardboard box, with the lid thrown back, and all those nappy headed dolls staring vacantly at passersby.  Upon leaving and returning in the car at one point during the day, I noticed that the Me Too baby now had both eyes wide open, but one of them had bleached out white so she had one brown eye and one glowing white eye.  I realized at the moment that nobody was going to take that box of misfit toys.  I had to admit that they truly were bound for the trash.

Being the nice guy and good husband that he is, Scott volunteered to dispose of the pitiful collection for me, thus saving me the heartache.  He didn't even announce when he was going to take care of it, only promised me that they would go away and I wouldn't have to watch.  Much later that day, I was working, when I heard Scott come in from outside and exclaim loudly, "Well, that was horrific!"

Since I had last taken a peek at the box of horrors terrorizing the neighborhood, it had rained.  It seems that at that point, the dolls were all water logged, what hair that remained was plastered down to their little plastic heads, the ratty frills on their dresses made thin and even more threadbare by the soaking.  The poor stuffed Raggedy Ann doll was bloated with water.  And through it all, the Me Too baby with her big blind white eye was staring accusingly at the cruel world that had left her as no more than a pile of wet garbage on the side of the road.

Scott dragged the box back to the trash can, and Me Too baby was the first one thrown in.  As she hit the bottom of the can and landed on her back, she made her little signature cooing sound, and the eyes, which should have closed for the last time, remained wide open, one brown and one glowing white, staring up from the depths of the trash can.  Poor Scott.  The plaintive little cry coming from the bottom of the can was just the creepy finishing touch he needed on the whole macabre scene.  But, then it got worse.  As each and every water logged doll followed Me Too into the trash can and landed on her soft upturned belly, they caused her to make the coo or crying sound...every single doll, every single time.

The trash can is waiting by the road for trash pick up day, and I try not to think too much about its contents.  I admit that I'm afraid to get too close to the can for fear I will hear that little cooing cry coming from inside.  I hope the garbage men don't hear it and attempt a rescue only to find the creepy valley of the misfit dolls inside.  That is truly the stuff of nightmares.