The worst gift ever

I was reading the Washington Post online, and read this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/23/AR2007122302145_2.html

You Call That a Gift?!
A More Divine Doll

I was 5 years old. My straight, dirty-blond hair was cut into an ugly-but-manageable pageboy. And I desperately wanted a Velvet Doll for Christmas. She was beautiful. Platinum blond hair that, with a push of her bellybutton, you could pull out of the top of her head so it would cascade around her gorgeous ankles. The TV commercials on our old black-and-white Zenith showed a crank on her back, to magically wind the hair back into her head for a short and sassy style.

But my parents were good Catholics. You know, "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity." "More's the pity." "Offer it up" and all that. And that Christmas, despite my pleading letter to Santa, when I opened my shiny present I had an entirely different kind of doll. A plaster statue of Jesus. He was pulling his red robes aside and pointing to a bloody, fleshy heart with flames shooting out around it. I thought it was gross. My older sister, Mary, aptly, got a Mary statue. And my younger sister, Tessa, got a massive Saint Theresa.

For the snapshot, I did try to put on my best, solemn and holy "I really want to be a saint when I grow up" face. Secretly, I wondered if I would be sinning if I had him go out on a date now and then with my garage-sale Barbie.

My older sister's eyes are all puffy and red in the photo. And my younger sister, who, at 3, was too young to know and love the unattainable mysteries of Velvet, smiles like an angel and hugs her plaster Saint Theresa statue tight.

-- Brigid Schulte

I've never laughed so hard.