BREAKFAST WITH BARBIE
On Sunday afternoons, my friends and I can be found at the pancake house, feasting on chicken apple sausages, waffles, pancakes and cheese grits, a caloric heaven that we have been starving ourselves all week to enjoy.
The breakfast is good, but it's our conversations that keep us coming back.
Collectively we--the Libra, the Pisces and the Cancer-have survived divorce, affairs, and rumors of affairs, baby momma and baby daddy drama, dragonlady bosses, job losses, promotions, random acts of stupidity, hideous hairstyles, misdirected angry emails and crimes of passion.
To our credit, we have kept the in-fighting to a minimum and our sisterhood circle has remained trump tight for the past three years.
Until recently.
Three grown women, the Libra (the balanced one) the Pisces (the honest one) and the Cancer (the loyal one) had a huge falling out over a doll.
Here's what happened: The Libra, a member of her church choir, has a great respect for her choir director's wife. Libra's affinity for this woman is understandable: I have met the wife on several occasions, and this woman does have a beautiful spirit. (And you can almost see the rainbows and butterflies appear when she sings.)
But I digress.
A few Sundays ago, Libra arrived at the pancake house toting the unopened box that contained the AKA Centennial Barbie Doll http://www.barbiecollector.com/shop/product.aspx?sku=L9657
that just arrived in the mail.
Libra took a butter knife from the table and carefully opened the box.
"She is going to be knocked out when she sees this!" Libra said, gawking over the official Barbie Collector's shopping bag. (Barbie herself was nestled in the bottom of the bag.) "This is her 100th Anniversary."
Full disclosure: We are all members of sororities--but not AKAs-and we were gawking too:
"AKAs have a Barbie doll?! Wonderful! We're next...how beautiful! What a wonderful thing..."
We could feel the other patrons' eyes, also waiting for the reveal.
And then Libra pulled Barbie out of the bag.
[Countdown to chaos: 5.4.3.2.1] "Why did you buy the white one?" asked the Pisces. "They didn't have a black one?"
Libra looked crestfallen, but the Cancer pointed out that the roundish nose is an indication of Barbie's Sistah roots. And the gown was fabulous. And the fact that there is a sorority-inspired Barbie doll opens the door for all of us to have our own.
"Are those eyes green or gray?" asked the Pisces. "Is she supposed to be mixed or what?"
By this time, the 20-something, tattooed server had come to fill our coffee cups, but in truth, to take a peek at the doll. She chirped, "Oooh I didn't know Rhianna got a doll!"
Libra gently tucked the doll back into its Barbie bag and the bag back into its shipping box.
"She'll be the first to have one at church," she said.
That Wednesday, Libra gave the doll to her choir director, for him to give to his wife.
Last Sunday, Libra returned to the pancake house with the Barbie bag in tow. This time, there was a hand-written rejection note attached to it.
In short, the choir director's wife was grateful, but was returning the doll because she has two "impressionable young daughters" and did not want to promote a "European/Latin" standard of beauty in her home.
The rejection crushed the Libra. The Cancer was maddened by it. The Pisces felt vindicated.
[This time, the faint crackling sound was not the eggs on the grill; it was our sisterhood giving way.]
First, Pisces said Libra was wrong to spend $50 on the doll in the first place...she should have bought sorority paraphernalia instead.
And then Cancer said the wife was wrong for returning the doll, and that she should have given the doll to one of her sorors to spread the love.
And then Pisces said Cancer's idea of re-gifting the ‘white' doll to another black woman only perpetuated a distorted standard of beauty.
And then Cancer reminded Pisces that some Black women do look like AKA Barbie and the doll was a symbol of diversity. And then Pisces snapped: "Nobody looks like that in your family." And then Cancer retorted: "And your family does?"
And then Libra told Pisces that she doesn't have a girly bone in her body and probably played with GI-Joes ‘when she was a little boy' so what made her the expert on beauty standards?
(This time, the clanking, clattering sound is not the wait staff removing dishes from the other tables; it is our sisterhood crashing and burning .]
And then Pisces told Libra that she was shocked that her credit card was approved to buy the doll, given her habit of overspending and not paying her bills on time.
And finally, Cancer recalled the time that Libra had to buy Pisces' pancakes because Pisces' lover stole her ATM card, drained her account and ran off with that Dunkin' Donuts girl.
"Oh, it's like that?" Pisces said as she pushed her uneaten food aside. She dug in her purse, produced a worn $50 bill, and laid it in the center of the table. "Breakfast is on me sweetie. I have money."
The silence that ensued permitted us to recognize how loud we had become and how ridiculous we looked to the other patrons.
Men couldn't come between us, money couldn't come between us, politics or religion couldn't come between us, and jealousy couldn't come between us. So how were we going to allow Barbie to bring us down?
In slow motion, the Pisces apologized to the Libra and the Cancer apologized to the Pisces and the three exited the pancake house with sincere ‘See ya laters' and vows to hook up the following Sunday.
That Monday, the Libra hand delivered Barbie to her rightful home, the national headquarters of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
And alas, all is well.
Signed,
The Cancer
email me at: zondrahughes@yahoo.com
