Barbie Trashes Her Dreamhouse, a set by carriembecker on Flickr.
recently, boxes of barbie crap have begun showing up at my apartment thanks to my mother who recently moved & is downsizing. old tangle-headed barbies with aging tiny clothes from the 80s, and tiny rigid plastic pumps are everywhere. half sets of faded furniture, miniature boxes of oreos, bottles of pepsi, multiple tubs of ice cream, & trays of tv dinners are now underfoot constantly.
my grandmother was a hoarder and could have very easily been a tv reality example of that heart-breaking mental illness. and even though I know that throughout her life she filled up rooms until no one could enter them, lived without working plumbing for who knows long because she didn't let anyone in, and famously had planted flowers in a toilet abandoned in the front yard of her teeny home in louisiana, I still have difficulty throwing things away. from the looks of these boxes, my mother did too, though to her credit, our home was always fastidiously clean and any collections were well organized and displayed neatly. now, my own kid can't even consider giving a thing away without tears, and so it seems fitting that Barbie, who has contributed to a many a hoard, has become a hoarder herself.
