As a child I inherited my older sisters’ Barbies. My modern fully pose-able Barbies accepted the old girls into their fold of eternal blonde hair and blue eyes. I never had a Ken doll, though. There might have been some Cougar Barbie action at night when I went to bed. I’ll never know. Any way the Barbies have managed to follow me into adulthood. They’re kind of a rag tag group, unclothed, a little musty behind the ears, and in dire need of a spa getaway. My sisters have never claimed them and I’ve never felt quite right about selling them at a yard sale or donating them to Goodwill so since college they’ve followed me every time I’ve moved.

Yes. I am a closet vintage Barbie hoarder!

Back in the summer I was getting some clothes out of storage in our attic and found a bag of Barbie clothes my maternal grandmother lovingly made for my collection of Barbies. I found one of the vintage Barbies in the bag. She’s a blonde haired, blue eyed naked Skipper doll. I brought her downstairs and she ended up on our breakfast bar, also known as the great dumping ground of our house, and I guess the girls didn’t really feel having Barbie Island Princess give her a makeover or a sympathy round of Botox. My brother came over the next week and was laughing at poor, naked Skipper and promptly placed her on top of a very tall bookcase in our den. And she’s been up there ever since peering down on us and, oh, I don’t know, she’s kind of grown on me.

Actually I’d pretty much forgotten she was there. Until a few weekends ago.

Miss C had a friend over to play and after her friend left with her mom Miss C and I were talking about the day when she said something that took me by surprise.

“Mommy, Mindy wants to know why we have a naked Barbie on top of the bookcase.”

I didn’t really have a good reason, except that I’d forgotten about her which might give you a clue about my general housekeeping skills since I only occasionally dust the top of our tall bookcase.

Naked Skipper doll has grown on me, kind of like a kitschy hula girl doll or a yard gnome. Don’t start worrying about me, though, unless I start dressing her up for each holiday. Wait, maybe that would be better than her being totally naked.