March 19, 2000 -- 12:02 AM EST

I'm amused.

Today (yesterday? Saturday!) we spent hours poking around in Toys 'R Us because neither of us had been in ages and ages. We went through every aisle. Ooohed over the baby furniture and strollers and baby toys (I know, I know, slap us) and lusted after the Genus IV edition of Trivial Pursuit that we always meant to get and didn't until now, marveled over how many colors of crayons there can humanly be, and much more.

We debated buying more balls for our niece's ball pit for kicks. I won't buy her toys normally, I rather buy her clothes. Her parents appreciate that more, and she gets so many toys already from all the other relatives we figure we ought to just not buy her any until she's out of babyhood and can tell us herself what kind of toys she'd like. But we like her ball pit, and what girl couldn't use more balls for her ball pit?! If I had a ball pit I'd want as many balls as I could stuff in there!

I was secretly lusting after Power Puff Girl decals/stickers to slap on my bike helmet, but there weren't any. I did come away with a squeeze-y Buttercup though. Her eyes light up green when you squeeze her and I laughed when she says, "Smash! Dash! Right in the kisser!" but what sold me was when she exclaims, "I think they're askin' for a hiney whoopin'!" She sits on my external zip drive now. She's my faaaaavorite!

Paul was amazed at all the retro toys for boys and the new editions. He was playing with some sword thing that vibrates with a low satisfying hum when you press a button.

"Most of the time, these toys that are supposed to have lasery or power-y type capabilities rattle like a cheap vibrator with that annoying battery high pitch sound. This one you feel in your hand more than hear and it's really low and more like a hum...I really could have gotten into this one as a boy."

This, from a man who had a bushaxe as a toy when he was 4 or 5. I can imagine him settling for a plastic sword, even if it did hum when he had a real axe!

We both secretly want the Frisbee bowling set for the yard.

Paul was charmed by this one series of dolls that were a female lawyer, vet, entrepreneur, doctor. They are Barbie-sized so I assume they'd fit in with Barbie furniture, but he was impressed they had normal looking faces and had real jobs. I secretly wondered what they looked like naked. Would they look normal or as weird as Barbie and her cronies?

The three aisles of Barbie stuff made us both astounded. Still trying to find clothes for the naked Barbie we've got and I think we both agreed it's better to buy her more Ken clothes or crochet her a dress. The hooker wear was cheesy. It wasn't even cool hooker wear, just cheese.

I was trying to understand some of the new packaging and he was mystified by the Generation Girl series and the Hollywood series of Barbie.

Then again, he was confused that the Fisher Price people are now moveable with joints and look realistic rather than being cylinder people with circle heads and no arms or legs and the hole at the bottom like they were for us. I am sure the classic style was there somewhere, but the "new" family was hogging that aisle with all their stuff.

"Look at that. The Fisher Price family drives a blue minivan," he snickered.

"I guess a van or a bus is the only way they can make all the family members fit in there for trips."

"Maybe. But a minivan?!" He has secret minivan hatred after his own four-kid family tried it out during his boyhood.

I've been fascinated by Barbie culture lately. It wasn't big in my childhood. It was there, but not big. Growing up overseas, I didn't have Toys 'R Us type stores either with the dazzling excess of shiny boxes, bright colors and endless playthings that would goggle a kid's mind. I could see why a little girl might go Barbie if she was in the Barbie aisle.

To adult me, her clothes look cheap hookerish and tacky.

To a little girl, all that glitter and rhinestone and feathery boas pinkness and junk practically screams glamour and sexiness and it won't be for a several years alter that she learns the difference between actual elegance and faux glamour.

I came home and poked about Barbie's website and stumbled into "My Design" where you can "design" a friend for Barbie and chose her skin tone, eye color, lip color, hair color and hairstyle, clothing and give her something of a personality, and the fork over $40 to have her sent to you.

So there's my dirty little secret today -- I was playing Barbie on-line.

Meet Jayne, my creation. I showed her to Paul and he agreed that the tossup was rough -- the comfortable looking jeans and sweater vs the black and red vampy look. You tell me -- which is better? The comfort of jeans or the grown-up, throw-it-your-face sexiness?

You can give the doll a kind of limited personality based on preset options that they'll print up on a card that comes with the doll. Here's what I made her be:

Presenting Jayne, specially made for Astrophe by the makers of Barbie¨ doll! Astrophe, meet Jayne!

Jayne is a friend of Barbie(R) doll and everything from her brown eyes to her stylish, black hair was chosen by you! Jayne has a wonderful sense of herself and loves dressing in funky clothes! Jayne is an artist with a great love for books. When she's not busy writing, Jayne hangs out with family and rides her bike. She lives in a house with her significant other, and she loves pigging out on sushi! Jayne can't wait to be your new best friend. That's why she comes with lots of love and good wishes just for you!

Obviously if I were really going to try to make a doll, I'd model her after myself -- or as near as the preset choices will let me! Too bad I couldn't also control her body shape and not just her facial features. I would have made her shorter with wider hips. Maybe made her pregnant too, since that seems to be my current fantasy. Given her pubic hair, nipples on her boobs, and hair armpits and legs and arms. Put a vibrator in her purse along with her pads. Give her a laptop and some pet reptiles. All kinds of things.

But basically, given her more options.

Barbie and her friends live in this pre-set world where their "choices" come pre-arranged for them and are really quite limited. What if she doesn't want to have a pink Ferrari? What if she wants to have a Hummer? What if she doesn't want to live in a pink townhouse? What if she wants to live in a too-small apartment with her lover? What if she doesn't want to be an astronaut or a teacher? What if she wants to be a soldier?

I'm suddenly reminded of something my sister yelled at me when we were very young and playing with the dolls my mother made up.

"Argh! I hate it when you are in charge! Everything happens strange!"

"What do you mean?"

"Spaceships invade the living room, robbers rob the house, the toilet gets clogged up and the plumber won't come. The customers in the restaurant refuse to pay the bill. Why can't you play normal?!"

"What's normal? Would you rather be in charge then?"

"YES!"

So that day she was in charge and that day when we played house everything went according to plan. Babies were put into cribs, not the oven in a Hansel and Gretel reenactment. There were no crank callers asking to see your panties. There were no aliens from outerspace coming to tea. The children did not streak the town. There were no food fights. I was bored, but I played it her way.

"I give up. You be in charge again."

"I thought you wanted to be in charge?"

"I did. But even though you make everything be all crazy and make me mad, it's more fun somehow."

"Well, what if we take turns being in charge?"

"No, I still like it better when you are."

"What if the things that happen are more realistic? Is that better?"

"Yeah, just no more aliens. That can't happen for REAL."

So our house still had the robber burgle, the toilets explode, the whole place go up in smoke, the food rot in the fridge, the parents get run over by cars and the children are left alone, everyone comes down with dreadful diseases, but there were no aliens anymore. Those can't happen for REAL.

Poor Barbie doesn't even get that much excitement -- everything in her house is pink and perfect and in working order. Everybody she knows looks suspiciously like herself, only with a different hairstyle and colored contact lenses. The only guys she can date can't screw because their underwear is welded on. Not that she could screw much herself -- she can't even pee.

Even Betsy Wetsy has her beat on that one.

~Astrophe