Toy Stories: Barbie left a lasting impression

I remember quite a few of the toys I got for Christmas as a child.

There was the plush cougar from my dad’s parents in Pullman, the complete tea party and dress-up set from my mom’s dad and his third wife, the pastel carousel from my great-grandma, and the hordes and hordes of Beanie Babies that were the signature toy of my childhood.

But the toy that sticks in my mind like no other is my very first Barbie doll.

I’m pretty sure the reason I remember this Barbie so well is because her accessories were cooler than she was.

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I was 4 years old and I wanted a Barbie doll more than I’d ever wanted anything. My best friends had tons of Barbies with pretty dresses, sparkling shoes and millions of tiny accessories. I needed a Barbie.

I can still feel how much I was hoping to get it. In fact, it’s the only part of my 2001 Christmas list I can even read. The rest is a jumbled mess of backward letters, shiny stickers, and alternating red and green letters.

The big day came. I was sitting by the pea-soup green couches when I was passed a weird-shaped gift. When I tore off the paper, I think I screamed. There she was, with long blond hair and a happy painted smile. She had patterned pants and sunglasses on her head. She was perfect. I named her “Dislee.” I don’t know how I came up with that or what I was thinking. All I know is that my mom still laughs at me because of my odd choice in name. When I told her that I was writing about a toy, she gave me a funny look and said in a sing-song voice: “Dislee.”

Upon further inspection of the doll, I realized this was no ordinary Barbie. This was a Kitty Litter Fun Barbie. She came with a fluffy white cat and a litter box with real colored sand. If you “fed” the kitty with a little water bottle and squeezed her over the litter box, water would come shooting out of the cat’s rear.

After that, you could scoop the sand clumps out of the litter box. In that instant, Barbie was dead and that little white cat, whom I called “Marshmallow,” was my obsession for the rest of the day.

Oh, the fleeting attention of a 4-year-old Hannah. One minute I want to play dress-up with Barbie dolls; the next, I’m cleaning out a miniature litter box. I don’t know whatever became of Dislee and Marshmallow, but they’ll always stick with me when I open gifts on Christmas.

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