One of my regular readers sent me this account of her chance encounter with abject terror- it's a warning really, to all of us, that Christmas shopping can be damaging to your mental health and a trip to the toy store can, at times, lead to irreversible psychological and emotional damage. Thank You Jane for sharing this!

Ah yes- the Christmas season is upon us and so I

forced myself to go shopping (which I truly hate).

First stop-one of those very popular everything stores.

Having really only 1 young person to shop for I decided to

hit the toy isle first and get that chore out of the way.

I mindlessly wandered up and down the isles looking at all

of the "stuff" they didn't have when I was a kid. Transformers,

those ugly Brat dolls, kids learning computers, all kinds of jewelry

making kits(cool) and than the Barbies-Oh my God! What the heck

is it? The Birds Barbie! Have you seen it? Do you remember when

you were finally old enough to watch that movie for the first time?

Who the heck thought a woman being pecked by birds was a good idea for a doll? I can remember cowering on the couch with my siblings-big pillows on our laps to hide in- watching that movie when I was young-maybe around 8 or 9- and it scared the crap out of me! Yep, that's something I want to remember with a special collector doll. It totally freaked me out and I just wanted to run out of the store screaming!!!

Oh- wait- I'm all grown up now and the birds don't really do that-YET!

For more on this "collectible" Barbie go to http://www.barbiecollector.com/

Don't say I didn't warn you-it's eerie!

While you are on the Barbie website check out the mean witch from the

Wizard of OZ- just goes to show-every one can be beautiful-if you are Barbie.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Have you ever seen anything so frightening? Thank you Jane. Now I'm going to have nightmares too.

Happy Holidays, Meandering