Unarmed

We had an issue with dolls' arms in my family. I just didn't realize how far back it went.

When I was six or seven, I had a doll called Baby Small Talk. She was a bow-legged plastic doll with movable arms and legs, and she would speak when you pulled a string in her upper back. I loved her and totally freaked out when, one day, her arm fell off. It snapped back on but would fall off at odd moments.

It was okay. I loved her. I brought her everywhere, though I had to be extra mindful of not leaving a limb behind by mistake.

A few years later, my sister and I inherited some old 50's-era Barbies and Ken dolls from some neighborhood girls who'd outgrown them. Well, my sister took the Barbies. I got the Kens. That was okay. They came with lots of clothes, including khaki army uniforms, baseball uniforms with bat, ball and glove, and lots of other stuff.

And wouldn't you know it: both had loose arms. I can't remember if it was the left arm or the right arm, but they would both drop the same arm at odd moments.

It was okay. I told the neighborhood kids that they had lost their arms in... yes... the Army. (Too bad I didn't yet know about General Phil Kearny, the famed one-armed Jersey son of a gun.)

Fast forward to this month. I open up an old box filled with stuff from my mother's youth and discover this doll. Dressed and made up in 1940s style, she was tucked in with a bunch of junior seamstress paraphenalia that suggested that Mom had tried her hand at making small dresses.

I gently reached to take her out, and, you guessed it... both her arms fell off.

I really don't get it. I don't know anyone -- outside the family, at least -- who had this kind of trouble with dolls.