The Memory Bank: Barbie, who else

 

I'm going in!

I swore never to do this, but the specter of AI has me panicked that the flavor of being human is going to be lost.  I’m pretty sure we should all be documenting how it feels to be flesh and blood before the Big Forgetting. Before we lose the words to describe the imprint the sensual world makes on our individual psyches and we’re forced to go to the Common Data Base to borrow a can of memory which will then pass for a soul.

So, considering all the press Barbie is getting, it’s fitting to start a blog about memory with her. 

First off, I didn’t own one, my mother thought Barbie looked grotesque—more on that later if and when I excavate the mother stuff. The year I asked for Barbie, I inexplicably got an electric train set.

Presents are indicators of how people see you. Over the years I’d gotten an atlas, a too-small fur hat, sexy dresses, a baby blue Shetland sweater and matching plaid skirt all of which I would never wear in public. A guitar I would never learn to play. Half ownership—with a brother—in a boxed set of Jesus Christ Superstar, the musical. I gave him my share and the rest is history.

But one wondrous Christmas I opened a Smith Corona portable typewriter. So, there’s that.

And Barbie did come into my life and changed it.  Like a lot of things I wanted, she came long after I lost interest.  The universe always pays up, but she does love to play.

Like a cat playing with a mouse.

Anyway, Barbie. My ex-husband bought her. Not for me. Nor for himself.  

He was working at the Bank of Boston corporate loan department.

Mattel was a big client.

He hated his job.

When we moved to Boston after six years in Europe, we fought over who would have to get the corporate job to keep us afloat while we pursued our art.  He lost the coin toss which determined that he would have to buy a blue suit and pound the pavement.

Interesting fact for the Common Data Bank, people could go into a business and drop off a resume once upon a time. Sometimes, a hiring manager would come out right then and there and interview you for a job. Sometimes they would hire you on the spot. I know, right?

Back to The Bank of Boston, bastion of White Christiandom. They still celebrated Christmas, and ex’s department had a Secret Santa. He pulled the name of the loan officer for Mattel out of the hat.

Ex spent a lot of time dressing Barbie. I had black fishnet gloves. He cut two fingers off and fashioned them into ripped stockings.  He used my eyeliner to both define and defile her eyes which then looked like Barbie had a VERY rough night.  He meticulously shredded a cat-o-nine-tails out of a pair of leather gloves and glued it onto her fist.

He wasn’t fired immediately after the Mattel loan officer opened his present, but all corporations were downsizing then—Japanese business methods were the rage—and he was let go at the first polite opportunity.

Realistically, it wasn’t Barbie’s fault. Business was changing, so he wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway. Banks, which used to hire liberal arts graduates because they could think, starting hiring business majors exclusively because they presumably knew how to make money. 

The irony is that they didn’t.

But that, like the mother stuff, is for another day.