Toys R What?

I'm going through one of my periodic fits of "I should keep a blog." This usually hits me around 2 a.m., when I have awakened in the night and mentally crafted the sharpest, wittiest entry in the brief history of blogging. I doubt this will match my nocturnal musings, but I will give it my best shot.

I've recently been baptized by the American Girl phenomenon when my daughters each received a "Looks Like Me" doll. Of course, neither child looks like her respective doll, but nevertheless, they all seem to be getting along.

The dolls, which currently fetch $105 each, were gifts from over-indulgent grandparents who happened to have had a bit of good fortune at an Indian Casino last fall. These formerly sensible people felt that their windfall was better spent on inanimate children and their accouterments than things like, say, long-term financial security.

So, now my girls have very expensive non-people to play with and carry around. If only it stopped there. No, these American Girl dolls have entire lines of clothing, footwear, accessories and home furnishings to make their non-lives more pleasant. And all of this stuff costs more than I spend on me and mine for similar items. A bed for an American Girl doll will set you back nearly $100. I'm not sure why someone with no nerve endings needs a bed, but maybe I should give the American Girls my Sleep Number Bed because severing the spinal cord is about the only way you're going to get a good night's rest on that thing.

As a kid, I was never much into dolls, probably for much the same reason I don't have decorative and expensive crystal: I just don't see the point. They don't actually do anything, and I don't really see what my kids do with them, other than change their overly expensive clothes. If my kids put as much effort into dressing themselves as they do their dolls, I wouldn't have to send them back to their rooms each morning to change because their outfits make them look "special."

I rank American Girl dolls right up there with other pointless items for kids, like pet rocks or Silly Bands. Silly Bands are, in essence, colorful rubber bands crafted into various shapes, which kids wear on their wrists -- or more likely than not in my house, leave on the floor to feed the vacuum cleaner. The good thing about Silly Bands is that they don't have to accessorize.

Hey -- maybe someday I'll find Silly Bands for American Girl dolls so my incredulity can be pushed to newer and higher levels.