If You Don't Have This, You're Not Cool Either: Special Double-Header Barbie Toilet Edition

In all my excitement over the shaveable baby (see the post below at your own risk), I totally forgot about the Barbie toilet.  You know how that can happen.

I've actually been saving this one up for a good day.  Because -- well, I don't usually like to get too introspective, but I'll be honest with you: I have very strong feelings about Barbie toilets.  This is notable, because I don't have very strong feelings about very many topics.  Here is an exhaustive list of the other exceptions to the rule:

• bubble tea
• comical names
• the arts
• coconut bubble tea

Just try to imagine the transports of joy my soul knew when I saw THIS baby (on the upper right).  Go on.  Imagine them!

I remember the moment so clearly.  It was at Toys 'R' Us, in Times Square.  I considered this one of those occasions that necessitates a call home:

ME (delirious with glee): eeeeeeee oogyoogyoogyoogyBARBIETOILEToogyoogyoogy eeee eeee eeeeee!
MY MOTHER: Who is this?

And let that be a lesson to all you parents who complain that your college-age kids never call to tell you about their Defining Life Events.

Naturally, this raises a number of troubling questions that we must ask ourselves, as academics and as advocates of the Barbie toilet:

• Can Barbie actually pee? Out of where exactly, given that her loiny parts consist of underpants that are ACTUALLY PART OF HER BODY?
• Does Ken ever leave the seat up? Does she get mad and throw Barbie shoes at him?
• Did you ever get "experimental" as a kid and switch Barbie and Ken's heads?

Anyway, I actually ended up forgetting all about the Barbie toilet -- at least until the other day when my friend Paige and I were riding the subway home, whereupon we saw someone taking home Barbie's Dream House:

You can't really see it too well in this picture -- and I couldn't find a really good one -- but there's a little white toilet in the upper left room, behind the tub.  It's advertised on the box as going "WHOOSH."

Now I can't say I'm as wholehearted a fan of this little number (I'm into sparkly pink) but Dream Commode here does have one extreme advantage, namely, that of going "WHOOSH."  Scoff if you must, but can YOUR toilet do that? Oh.  Right.  Well, I suppose you think that makes you SPECIAL or something.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR INTELLECTUALS:

1. Do you suppose the WHOOSH mean it actually flushes, or is this one of those sorry cases of "talking the talk" without "walking the walk"? Could you flush a Barbie shoe down it? How about a Ken head? Explain.

2. Do you suppose Barbie ever used the Dream Commode for the purpose of giving her little sister, Skipper, a "swirlie" in a moment of rage?

3. Give the poor woman a break.  She has underpants for loins.

Shave the day

There's no sense denying it.  All of us, at some point or another, have woken up and said to ourselves : "Gosh darn it.  All my life, I've suffered from the gnawing pain of the soul that can only result from the lack of a good baby to shave."

None of us should have to suffer any longer.  The Chinese toy industry understands that.  They have heard our cries, and responded:

I was alerted to this revolutionary item by reader Steve, to whom I am much indebted.  It's not every day you find a shaveable baby of this caliber.  Thank goodness Asia saw fit to provide us one.  In the West, you just TRY finding such a quality item outside of your hoity-toity high-end snottypants shaveable baby retailer such as Bergdorf Goodman or Harrods.

I'm glad I could relieve your pain.