Affliction

I can't believe I forgot to write about the funniest day I've had in some time.  I have a niece, and she recently turned 10. She is the only girl in a family of many boy cousins, so she has been my only girly outlet for a long time.  I thought that for her 10th birthday we should commemorate the progress into double digits with an excursion--a girly, pink, sparkly excursion.

She elected to have her best friend join us, and two other little girlies met us down in Chicago. So we had a cadre of estrogen, and my niece decided that we would begin our day at the American Girl store.  For those of you who don't know, AG dolls are a really big deal. They are sometimes historical and sometimes not; always, though, they are wholesome strivers for the good of all girlkind. The AG store is really more of a tiny specialty mall focused on parting parents from their money. There is a museum-like area, where the historical dolls are set in glassed-in tableaus with expensive antique tiny furniture; then there is the shopping area (that's actually everywhere, salted among displays, information, and feel-good homilies); and finally there is the Most Amazing Area Ever.

There is a little street, but not a street, more like a winding pink path, that has a number of stops one can make with her doll. For instance, there is the pet shop and the cupcake area. But more awesomely there is a Hair Salon, where people can get their doll's hair done in all kinds of styles. I don't know if I made it clear that people who do this have to pay for it. A doll hairstyle. Like springy curls or, I don't know, ponytails or something. Again, requiring money. Instead of struggling through it at home, one can just have a professional attend to it. As I recall the main event in doll-playing-with was doing hair, no? Maybe I just had a weird stylist ambition.

Even more awesome was right next to the salon. It was the Hospital. At first I thought they were just being ironic. No, no, they were not. I started becoming aware of this when I noticed tiny stethoscopes around white-coated doll physicians. Nurses too. I got my initial snickering under control long enough to approach the triage area. I asked, "Um, what kind of things do dolls mostly come to the hospital for?" The doll physician responded (seriously), "We see a lot of dog bites here." After I contained my rising snort I asked, " So what happens then?", thinking that maybe they gave them a fake rabies shot and threw in a few stitches. She said, "We generally just replace the arm, depending on the severity of the bite." I scooted out of there quick, aware that I was about to burst with unkind mocking laughter.

Dude. They were dead serious. They were not working at their jobs hilariously. They were truly concerned for doll health, probably even took courses in doll anatomy and maybe even doll amputation/mangling repair surgery. It was really beyond comprehension and altogether too much for me. I lost my shit numerous times throughout the AG experience but the hospital took the cake.

I will continue the day in a separate post, as it is totally unrelated and right now I'm still in AG mode.