I had a nice day off catching up with friends. I had tea at my friend Al's house. His daughter Scarlett was very pleased to see me and has presumably forgiven me for saying that her house came out of a bum last year(see August 24th 2003).
She asked me if I would like to come and play dolls with her. To be honest, I didn't. I have played dolls with her once before and I am rather unsure of what I am supposed to contribute, but today I was very tired after the week's exertion and was flagging fast. Scarlett asked everyone else in the room (two of whom were babies and thus of no use to anyone, the tiny nits) and nobody else was prepared to play. Which apparently meant I had to. I agreed on the understanding that I could play the part of the Action Man she has. I didn't want anyone thinking I was fruity.
Upstairs Scarlett gave me my Action Man figure (it's not a doll). I asked his name. She told me his name was Action Man. I said that that couldn't be the name he was christened with; he must be Simon Action Man or David Action Man. But Scarlett was insistent. Playing dolls allows little room for freedom of expression. This action figure was a man whose first name was Action and whose second name was Man. His parents, Mr and Mrs Man, must have truly hated him.
Scarlett then informed me that Action was married to Lola Barbie. This disappointed me. I had been hoping to portray him as a single man with his pick of the ladies. His only competition seemed to be a slightly spooky looking Captain Scarlet (no relation) and a manic-faced Peter Pan. I suspected that they were more interested in each other than the array of Princesses, mermaids and blondes that were on offer. Why had Action Man married so young before he'd had the chance to play the field? He must have at least been curious about what it would be like to make love to a mermaid.
I began to realise that Scarlett had possibly chosen the wrong person to play dolls with. Practically every story-line that popped into my head was inappropriate for my play-mate.
Plus I just really wanted to go to sleep. More than anything in the world. I tried to create a scenario where Action was tired and was going to bed, but Scarlett and Lola were having none of it. So I instead decided that Action was watching TV and wanted Lola to make him his dinner. Being a radical feminist of the twenty-first century Scarlett was not keen on this adventure. But then she didn't seem to be coming up with any ideas herself.
Then she had one. Lola had hired a cleaner to help round the house and Sindy arrived at the door. Now, I don't know about Action, but I certainly found Sindy a much more attractive chunk of plastic than Lola, his miserable wife, who wouldn't let him sleep or watch TV. I suspected immediately that Action regretted having tied the knot so young. I asked Scarlett if it would be OK if Sindy became Action's girlfriend instead of Lola, but Scarlett wasn't having it. Even at four she has strong views on the sanctity of marriage. She was frustrated with me as I wasn't playing dolls properly. But I was frustrated because she hadn't told me what the right way to play dolls actually was. I tried to avoid the issue by going to sleep. She then came up with the idea that all the other male dolls... I mean action figures... would hit Action Man in the face. Every time he stood up. Every time Action Man got hit I would make him stand up and start singing a song about how good it was being Action Man, but then another action figure would punch him and he would fall over and stop singing. This amused Scarlett. I thought it was interesting that she was so moralistic about sexual freedom, but when a man wanted to do nothing but sing she found it amusing for him to be hit so hard in the face that he fell over.
After some time I managed to escape from the doll room to the world of the adults below.
I was right when I was four: playing with dolls is stupid and girls are all idiots. If anyone understands the rules of playing dolls or can explain to me what I was meant to do, then please let me know.
