We had a wonderful weekend spent in the Chicago area for a family reunion. We reunited with several family members and, in some cases all of us said, “Are you sure we’re related?” With a family as large as ours, it can be hard. My mother and her siblings were rather prodigious when it came to reproduction. Add in spouses, children, grandchildren and random people coming in off the street and that’s a lot of people. The Rolling Meadows police department, shortly before shutting us down, estimated the crowed at about 3,000 revelers, all singing songs and calling each other names like “Lefty”. When we assured them that, no there weren’t 3,000 people there it only seemed like that because we were all wearing two name tags and, no we weren’t speaking in code because our underboss was in prison on racketeering charges. Birdman really was there. Whitey wasn’t though. We all sighed with sadness.
We all had a great time. Really. Despite the fact that we’re all a little rounder and stranger than we were last time we got together. But there’s really a stunning array of people and interests contained within this little microcosm. And when we get together, we get, well . . . strange.
However, the highlight of my evening was probably watching my niece dance to YMCA. This once shy and quiet girl was up there shouting out the lyrics, wearing a cowboy hat and doing the moves perfectly. More so, she was the embodiment of at least three of the village people at one time.
My other highlight was seeing my gorgeous baby daughter, decked out in a little sailor dress, charming the pants off of anyone with in eyesight. And then she danced and danced until she fell asleep on my shoulder dancing to Patsy Cline singing “Crazy.”
But if you ask Matilda, there was only one reason for our trip. The American Girl Place. But I’ll get to that.
The drive up was uneventful, for the most part. Unless you count the time where I almost ran over a woman who was trying to pick up her underwear from the side of the road. Screeching brakes, skidding, car sliding sideways and her looking at me like, “Oh crap. My last act will be picking up my dirty underwear from Interstate 55 somewhere between Bumblecrap and Bellybuttonlint, Illinois.”
She lived. Whatever crap was in my arteries was loosened by the sudden rush of adrenaline and sent straight to my brain. After three hours I was still shaking.
The kids slept through the whole thing.
Then I hit Joliet. And when I say hit, I mean literally. It was like a wall of cars. Traffic was fine until Joliet. Then it was solid until I got to the hotel. I expected this, sure. But I’d never actually driven in Chicago or the surrounding areas. I had either flown and taken cabs or was driven by someone else. Well, no one warned me that people in this area (not all, mind you) resort to something I came to call “Random Braking for Phantom Objects”. I don’t know if there is a need in the area to suddenly check your brakes on the highway by going from 65 to 0 in less than a second or if they just saw my license plate and thought it would be funny to make my bowels liquefy every thirty seconds. By the end of the weekend I realized that no matter where I drove I managed to get behind someone who was hallucinating.
“Holy crap! Air! (Scrrrrrrrreeeeech)”
“Oh no! Godzilla on I-90! (Screeeeeeeecccccch)”
Believe it or not, this happened in parking lots too. I’d be driving along in a totally empty parking lot and the guy in front of me would slam on his brakes for no reason.
Screeeeeeeeeeccccch!
”Oh good. They still work.”
I was a nervous wreck until I got to the hotel. The guy who checked us in was probably wondering why I kissed him full on the lips.
On Saturday we went to the American Girl Place with Matilda. She had been saving every penny for this since the moment we gave her an American Girl doll for her seventh birthday. The week leading up to her trip she had taken to sleeping with the catalog and, two days prior, her mother caught her kissing the catalog and saying, “I’ll see you soon.”
In case you don’t know what American Girl is, it is a cult that recruits little girls at the age of six and programs them through their teen years. What they do is sell them books, dolls, clothes and accessories that are tied together. You can read a series of books about a little girl who is growing up during the Depression, the 1800s, early 1900s, etc. Sure, the books teach the girls about life during different periods and provide them with a deep understanding of the historical perspective of the characters but, it’s the dolls that get you. These suckers are expensive and the clothing and accessories available are incredible. And pretty cool, I might add. The level of detail the craftspeople put into these dolls and their stuff is just amazing. Tiny glasses, working harmonicas, roll top desks. These damn dolls are better outfitted than me.
When we first gave Matilda her doll, she didn’t touch it. It sat on her shelf and she would stare at it for four hours. She called this “playing”. I called it nodding off and equated it to a guy I know who took heroin. Mom explained to me that this wasn’t the type of doll you actually played with. You admired it.
So, essentially, it’s demagoguery.
Later, Matilda began arranging the doll in situations and leaving her there. She was typing a newspaper. For a month. She was lying down and getting rest. For a week. Walking in her room was like going to Madame Toussad’s. You saw dioramas of how Matilda’s doll would be played with. If it were the “playing” type of doll.
Since then, and especially leading up to the trip, the doll has become part of the family. She eats with us. She watches TV with us. She even rebels against our rules. Overall, she’s a nice doll. Not too uppity.
But the dolls are only an inroads. Next are “minis” which are tiny rooms with tiny furniture. You decorate the room and then look at it. That’s it.
Then there’s the magazine that a) sells the new products and b) gives the girls tips for surviving adolescence. Good tips too. Amazingly good tips. In fact, I wish I had American Girl Magazine when I was in junior high. Of course, they’d have to add a tip on how to survive the beatings doled out for being a boy reading a girl’s magazine.
By the time the girls reach teenhood, they are too bitter and disillusioned to want to deal with the doll. It gets packed away and moves with them, confined to a box.
But then the former little girls have little girls of their own. And the cycle of consumerism starts anew.
They are brilliant. Brilliant I tell you.
And, quite honestly, some of the coolest girls’ toys I’ve ever seen. So even though I’m making fun of them, they are quite a positive influence on my daughter’s life. A very expensive positive influence.
One of those positive influences stems from her desire for more American Girl stuff. She scrimped and saved for two years. She did extra chores for us, her bio-dad, grandparents and random strangers who were suckered in by her giant blue eyes.
When we saw the store from across the street, she let out a squeal of delight. When we entered the doors, she nearly melted. When she saw it was three levels, she almost passed out.
Then she started scouring for new stuff like an old pro searching the tables at Feline’s Basement. Two hours later she had bags full of stuff and the look of a girl who was satisfied with life. She had saved and earned $184. We promised to take care of taxes.
How much did she spend? Exactly $184. On the nose. She had planned her trip for weeks and the preparation paid off.
On the street back to the car she proclaimed our little weekend jaunt as the second best trip we’d ever taken (slightly behind Disney World).
And she declared me as the greatest daddy in the world because, even though she had just blown $184 on doll stuff, I had picked up a pair of glasses for her doll. Now they look like twins.
And she smiled and hugged me for the rest of the weekend.
Certainly worth a pair of $6 doll glasses.
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