Sally Breslin: My Life: PLAYING WITH CHEAP BARBIE JUST WASN'T ENOUGH FOR ME

Dolls always have fascinated me. When I was young, I never could have enough of them. To me, they were like real babies, so I refused to part with even the old worn-out and decapitated ones.

Any time my mother tried to sneak one of my ratty old babies out to the trash, I knew it in an instant and would whine until she brought it back. The neighbors probably wondered why my poor mother was outside fishing in our trash barrels so often.

I’ll never forget the time my dad decided to test his new Argus 35mm camera by taking a “portrait” shot of me one night while my mom was out shopping. He didn’t comb my hair or wash my face, and to make matters worse, I refused to let go of Betty, one of my dolls that was so old and cruddy looking, you’d think she’d been attacked by a pack of rats...in the city dump.

My mother never forgave my father for taking that photo. She said that anyone who saw it would be tempted to donate money to our family.

Now that I’m an adult, I must admit I still love dolls…especially Barbie dolls. In fact, over the years, I have amassed a huge collection of them. This is the reason why the décor in one of the bedrooms is called, “Barbie, Then and Now.” There are rows of Barbie dolls, still in their original boxes, standing three-high on the bureaus, the nightstand, the desk, the wardrobe and the bookcase.

When my mother stayed in that room one night, she complained that she couldn’t sleep with all of those beady little eyes staring at her.

The problem with collecting Barbie dolls is that in order for them to be worth anything in the future, I can’t play with them or change their clothes. I can’t comb their hair or braid it into a bunch of knots. I can’t even break the seal on the boxes they come in. Basically, all I can do is admire them from afar.

For this reason, my husband never could grasp the reason why I thought collecting Barbies was so much fun. One night, for example, I showed him a gorgeous coat I’d bought for Barbie.

“Which one of your 5,000 Barbies is that for?” he asked.

“None of them,” I said. “I can’t undress any of my dolls. They won’t be worth anything if I do.”

“Then why on earth did you buy the coat?”

“Because it’s a collectible!”

He gave me a look that clearly told me he thought I needed a long vacation in a non-Barbie environment.

“But what fun is collecting stuff if you can’t even touch it?” he asked. “Knowing you, I’ll bet it’s just killing you that you can’t dress those dolls in wild clothes or give them beehive hairdos!”

He had a point. There had been many times when I’d been tempted to throw caution to the wind and listen to the devilish little voice in my head that was telling me, “To heck with the fact that she’s an original Bob Mackie designer

Barbie that could be worth $500! Tear open the box and see if she’s wearing stockings or panties underneath that fancy sequined gown of hers!”

So a few years ago, I set out to buy the cheapest Barbie doll I could find. She turned out to be only about $5 at a discount store. Then I bought a bunch of clothes for her—though they weren’t “official” Barbie clothes. They said, “Fits any 11.5-inch doll,” on the package and cost only a dollar each. At least I knew I wouldn’t feel guilty playing with those.

Thus began my twice-weekly ritual of dressing Cheap Barbie in different outfits, styling her hair and then setting her out on display in assorted poses on the shelf in my home-office.

For Easter, she wore a yellow dress, a matching flowered hat and her hair in a long braid. On Memorial Day, she wore red, white and blue and pigtails. And for prom season, I dressed her in a puffy gold gown with silver threads running through it, a silver tiara, necklace and sparkly high-heels.

After a while, one Cheap Barbie just wasn’t enough for me. I wanted Barbie to have friends – a group of ladies to party with. So eventually, I ended up buying three more. Then I looked for more elaborate clothes for them on Ebay – used outfits, so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about being the one who’d committed the offense of opening their original packages.

Pretty soon, I was spending more on my Cheap Barbies than I was on buying collectors’ Barbies. After all, if it rained, my Cheap Barbies needed boots. If it was hot, they needed swimsuits. If it was cold, they needed jackets, woolen pants and fur hats.

I ended up with two suitcases full of clothes and accessories for my Cheap Barbies.

And then it happened. I lost all interest in them. The four Cheap Barbies were left wearing their summer “go to their friend’s wedding” attire from 2017. And now, I'm ashamed to admit, they are covered in dust.

I had the feeling that the reason why I lost interest was because I really wanted a taste of the forbidden fruit – I wanted to play with an expensive, collectible Barbie doll and totally destroy her future value by ripping open the precious and all-important factory-sealed box and freeing her from its confines.

And that’s exactly what I did.

So my $500 Bob Mackie doll currently is worth only about $25. Her fashionable upswept hairstyle now is just a limp ponytail. Her lavish, sequined gown is missing sequins. And I can’t find one of her designer high-heels.

But, I have to confess, it was worth every second of the sacrifice.

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