I ordered a mixed lot of 40 Barbie shoes off eBay use for some craft projects. They arrived yesterday.

melloveschallah via Flickr

(You know you're a redneck from a landlocked state when you get excited about mail that has an airmail sticker and a stamp from Singapore on it.)
Even as children we know there's something not quite right with Barbie. Those impossibly tiny shoes that fit on her permanently disfigured feet. The waistline that is nearly as narrow as her neck. Legs that are twice as long as the rest of her body.

(Good article here.)

Don't get me wrong. I love Barbie, and her 432 multicultural, politically correct friends, and their 36 million accessories. Barbie is the source of countless hours of creative play. Even into adulthood the entertainment value Barbie provides continues. A quick Internet search for Barbie images reveals grown-up Barbie playtime... as if some of the things we did with our Barbies as kids wasn't bad enough.

(Mine were frequently held prisoner in a "stone" dungeon beside our fireplace and fed only bread and water and allowed to wear rags. And then there was that little fling with Luke Skywalker from next door. Mom was not pleased to find them in the closet. Hey, I was 9. I had NO IDEA what was going on. And you have to wonder about the girl who tied her Barbies to the fan by the hair and waited for their heads to pop off.)

Anyway, I found pictures of Goth Barbie, Barbie with a "tramp stamp" tattoo, trailer trash Barbie, menopausal Barbie, redneck Barbie, recently paroled Barbie, teen pregnancy Barbie, and more. Those are the "clean" ones. 

Reports of what a Barbie doll would actually look like in real-life have been circulated for years. But nothing makes the reality of her distortion as obvious as the following picture from this Forbes.com report. (Click here for the full article.)

Barbie Distortion 39-18-33

Seriously, she's a little weird lookin'! Don't you just want to twist her waist around backward?
I want to see someone do the same kind of Photoshop technique with one of the newer fashion dolls, the ones with the ginormous heads and eyes like the lemurs in Madagascar. CREEPY!

Did you cut your Barbie's hair?
Ever try to curl it with a curling iron?
What was your Barbie's job? (Back in the days before her job and the tools of her trade came with her in the box.) Mine was a "bookbinder." Seriously. She stapled tiny construction paper book covers to folded pieces of typing paper.