Authenticity Lessons from the American Girl Store
I wasn't thrilled. I'd straight learned that the trip to NYC that I was taking with my extended kind would center on the American Girl store. When I think New York, I mark Central Park, Broadway shows, taste cocktails, and shopping. I'm not a doll herself, not now in my 33rd year, or ever. I went through a Cabbage Over phase, but it was brief, and it was more about needing to have what everyone else had and less about true doll playing.
But a few days ago, in a three-recounting brick monstrosity, on the corner of 5th Avenue and 49th Row, I became a doll person.
As I roamed this pink and lavender wonderland holding the grasp of my niece Maggie -- who, it must be esteemed, was dressed in an outfit that was an exact carbon copy of the one worn by the doll she clutched -- I was amazed. We were greeted by a sales crozier dressed like fine inn concierges who commented, of course, on how smashing my niece and her doll looked. We had brunch in an overstuffed kiosk that included booster seats and correct position settings for both human and doll. Even the bathroom had a holder in each stop where presumably your doll would sit and wait for you as you occupied the facilities. The store has a doll sanatorium, a doll photo studio, and a doll tresses salon.
It might've been at the salon that it happened.
I stood there transfixed, watching the stylist as she spritzed a doll's curls, and chatted breezily with her three-foot-exaggerated owner, as if they were old friends. As if all of this was normal. My mother came up next to me asking, "Do you have a yen for a doll? I'll get you one if you want. They didn't have this catalogue of thing when you were growing up." I found myself nodding involuntarily. Yes, yes, I do hankering a doll.
To reiterate, I'm not a doll herself. Did I really want a doll? No. But by being there, I felt like I wanted to be part of this other-far-out too. What was happening to me?
I had come head-on with a genuine live "authentic" experience and, I had been hooked.
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