Pensees: American Girl II and Still an American Sucker

American Girl II and Still an American Sucker

Jennie was away last night, so my lovely six-year-old prepared supper. Strawberries, peaches, watermelon, grapes (all cut and plated) and potato salad. We then sat down like two old people, each one with reading material. I happened to be perusing the CBD catalogue. Patience was delighting over her latest American Girl catalogue. We ended up having an indepth discussion on the merits and demerits of AG paraphernalia, whether Nikki (AG Girl of the Year) would look good in Felicity’s clothes, and so forth. It brought to mind one of my more popular entries that I posted about a year and a half ago. Since I am still in the AG years of my parenting, I thought I’d put it back up today just for kicks.

American Girl and An American Sucker ~ March 11, 2006

Okay, I need to purge. A public humiliation, self-abnegation, and verbal sackcloth and ashes are due. I am an American Sucker.

There, I said it.

Now, for an explanation that hopefully gives only enough information to edify and still avoid the lurid, titillating, juicy details that would glorify extravagance in the minds of my readers and make them secretly wish they had a testimony such as mine. Here are the facts, folks (love the sinner, hate the sin): I took my daughter and wife to “high tea” at the American Girl place in downtown Chicago.

High Tea. “High” is for price. “Tea” is for teed off, just spelled differently. The tea was a prodigal waste, the rip-off of the century. Yet I, in spite of my sixth sense screaming for my attention, meekly followed my two ladies into the pink vortex. I did not stand up in the name of common sense. I did not even attempt to verbalize a guilt trip about remembering poor, starving Ethiopians or something. I wilted, overwhelmed by the feminine powers of the only two ladies in the world who could compel me to such extremities. Yet as I sank my teeth into the crusty, dried bread, I came to my senses and swore I would do public penance, a shame-faced mea culpa, and banish myself from that place for at least another year.

Actually, I liked the store. At least as much as a grown man who never has had any dolls and who really doesn’t want dolls can like a doll store, I liked it. I liked it in the same way I like going to a friendly, chit-chatty phlebotomist. The friendly chit-chat is appreciated, but one is still keenly aware of the unnatural penetration of sharp metal into one’s skin. It’s very much the same when I go to a doll store with my ladies: friendly people, but still unnatural for me. I don’t think I could get addicted.

But I must say as a father who is very much interested in my daughter’s development into a woman of grace and culture, I don’t have all that much against the store itself. My readers will be happy to know, as I was, that Jess had a very positive home-schooling experience. I didn’t know Jess until I went to the store, but I instantly realized how abysmally behind the times I am. Everybody knows Jess. While my wife and daughter browsed, I satisfied my book craving and read Jess’ entire biography in one sitting. It wasn’t long because she is only about ten years old, I think. Nonetheless, the store and the American Girl have some qualities to be appreciated. I’ll say more about that later. Right now, I’m ranting about the “high tea” that cost me an arm and a leg and nearly every drop of my already-nearly-depleted sanctification.

We had been told by several friends that it was a good experience and worth it. I have a number of friends who have American dolls in their homes and I trust them as men of wisdom and character, but now with the unambiguous lucidity of hindsight I distinctly remember some of the men shifting nervously as their wives and daughters glorified the whole experience. In fact, I recall now with unsparing clarity the unnerving fact that they could not look me straight in the eyes during that conversation even as they verbally affirmed what a lovely experience I was destined to enjoy. I should have picked up on that. I should have realized that they were suckers too; men who love their little girls and therefore very vulnerable to occasional stupidity.

I cannot judge them. I am a man of like passions and weaknesses. I can only wish that when our wives and girls are talking dolls we could develop a secret code that signals “Run for you life,” “Play sick,” or “Never take a family vacation to a city where one of those stores exists. Save yourself, brother!” No, no. Unfortunately, it’s not that way. Instead, we daddies for some reason take secret pleasure in doing the ridiculously extravagant for our little girls and then miserably attempt to justify ourselves to our own clamoring common sense by letting other daddies get suckered into the same thing.

Most of my friends have vocations that compensate monetarily much more than my own vocation so seventeen dollars for a tiny luncheon doesn’t have quite the same effect on them as it does on me. But for me, seventeen bucks for a bad sandwich, a bad drink, a bad salad, a bad fruit kabob, a bad desert, and bad service is a BAD deal.

Seventeen dollars?!, you gasp. Yes – gulp – seven and ten whole US dollars, enough to buy a quality used book or three McDonald’s menus. A book would have provided hours of pleasure and edification and the McDonald’s menus would have tasted better. Much worse, it was seventeen buckaroos PER PERSON! (Can you sense my exasperation?) Seventeen times three is – well, it’s too painful to do the math. I could have made better sandwiches in my sleep and bought a book or two to give to my future bibliophile son-in-law. Instead, we had HIGH TEA in a room with dolls. So who cares if they have a little doll highchair for your daughter’s doll and a miniature cup for the baby?

I should care, I guess. I have two American girls in my life. I am married to the grown-up one, and I father the other one. The grown-up one and the little one both liked it. What else can I say? They probably feel that it would be worth me getting a second job just to cover that one event. My grown-up American girl thinks that memories are better than stuff. She thinks that memories can be made with little monetary output and lots of creativity (she often does it that way) or they can be made with a little extravagance now and then. Either way, memories are never free. The best memories cost something. Always. But memories last forever.

So, once I get my watch, favorite shirt, piano, and gold fillings back out of hock, I might meekly get suckered all over again. And behind the obligatory macho muttering of common sense, I’ll be secretly pocketing away memories that will always be precious to me — even more than seventeen times three.

Oh, well. Tough luck for my future bibliophile son-in-law.