The Night of the Intruder

Posted by Sunny Dee on May 22, 2009 · 2 Comments 

Dear Mattel,

Since I was born I have been collecting your Cabbage Patch Dolls.  As a child I liked them to play with and do all of the normal girly things with but despite a number of dolls that lost head, clothes, arms and legs over the years my Cabbage Patch Dolls I could never part with.  They stuck through me through the toddler, preschool, and elementary school years until I got into middle school and I started collecting them in earnest.

Every year on my birthday I would get the new Cabbage Patch Doll that came out.  Since my birthday is in December this usually meant I was the first to have the newest doll and I began putting them unopened on a shelf in my room.  Thus began the clear distinction between the Cabbage Patch Dolls I collected and the Cabbage Dolls I still slept with and allowed to adorn my bed with other leftover stuffed animals that had survived the playful years.  Over time my Cabbage Patch Doll collection grew while the ones that stayed were on my bed remained. 

The thing that made it best was that sometimes you, Mattel, came out with a Collectors Cabbage Doll specially made for events or trends that were happening in society.  For example during the Atlanta Olympics there was a Cabbage Patch Doll for each event. Naturally, I got a track star Cabbage Patch Doll. There was the growing hair doll, the twins dolls that came with two smaller dolls in one box, at one point you had dolls that had braces and were in wheelchairs, over the years the trends continued. 

Then in 2000 you came out with a doll that many other companies and dolls had done before but never the Cabbage Patch Doll. You came out with a talking doll. I couldn’t resist, not only did I buy it but I took it out of the box.  The way I opened the box and removed the doll from it was similar to the way Charlie so enjoyed unwrapping the Willy Wonka bar to discover the Golden ticket beneath the layer of foil that had been so carefully placed over the chocolate to maintain it until it was opened. 

I gently pulled this doll out of the box and much to my delight it did talk.  It had a child-like voice and could say choice phrases when you pressed this button on her back.  She also giggled and made adorable cooing sounds. I was immediately transported back to my childhood when the thrill of a new toy is so engagaing you can’t help but play with it all the time. I pushed the button and pushed the button memorizing the exact inflection of every phrase and laughing right along with her when she giggled.  I fell in love with this battery-operated doll that had none of the traditional soft filling and round face of the rest of the Cabbage Patch Dolls but was instead a plastic imitation of so many other toys on the market.

For the first time in years I placed a new Cabbage Patch Doll amongst the others that adorned my bed and every now and then I would press her button just to her her little voice and canned laughter. 

Every night before I went to bed I push all the extra pillows, blankets and stuffed animals to the floor until they make a huge heap on the left side of my bed.  Then every morning I gather them and place them back on the bed in the arrangement I’ve grown to obsessively think is perfect for them. This particular night was no different.  Until the middle of the night when I woke with a start as I lay in the quiet darkness of my bedroom.  I was sure I’d heard something and it sounded like it was directly in my bedroom. 

I lay there listening again for the noise and as I did my thoughts ran through all of the defense mechanisms that would save me if I was in immediate danger. Pepper spray on the night stand- check, phone within reach- check, keys on the hook by the door-check. I lay there tensely with every nerve ending in my body fully erect listening again for the sound that had woken me out of my slumber.  I continued to run through the list in my head, fully alert and fully poised to confront the danger when I heard the sound again.  It was quiet, it was muffled and it was definitely inside the house though maybe not in my bedroom as I’d thought in the first place.  I rolled over and sat up in bed, slipping my feet into my shoes and straining to hear the noise again so I could determine where the sound was coming from and decide my escape route.

I heard it again, the low, deep sound of a person talking.  Definitely a man’s voice and definitely trying to speak softly so as not to be heard. Definitely in my house. 

I leaped off the bed, grabbed my pepper spray and my cell phone in one fell swoop and bolted for the front door. I was out the door and slamming it behind me before my intruder even had time to react to the fact that I’d escaped.  Down the two flights of stairs in our apartment building I went and had hit the sidewalk before I realized I hadn’t grabbed my keys on the way out.  I looked at the time on my cell phone and decided this was an emergency,  I’d better call my fraternity brothers to come over immediately. 

I got on the phone with each of them, rousing them out of deep slumbers, startling them into action as I explained my emergency and hung up before they had even made it to their car.  Once I’d spoken to each of my six fraternity brothers I sat down on the curb to wait.  Too anxious, I began to pace and review the details in my head.  At first the sound had sounded like it was coming from my bedroom but once I’d sat up I realized it was coming from somewhere further away, one of the main rooms.  As I strained to make sense of the words I’d heard I felt sure there was a familiarity to that voice, almost like I’d heard it somewhere before.

As my racing mind slowed down and I began to think more clearly over the sound of my pounding heart I became sure I’d heard that voice before and what was it saying?

Further contemplation. It almost sounded like…noooo…why would my suspected murderer/rapist be saying….Maaaammmmaaa?

Immediately it clicked. I had heard that voice before I just didn’t recognize it with the drugged out way the syllables carried because the battery was dying, causing the familiar phrases to have slowed down and deepened. 

I threw my head back and laughed, racing back up the stairs, through the house and into my bedroom. I flipped the light on and dug around through the heap on the side of my bed until I found it.  The doll had landed in such a way that her button was being pushed and even as I picked her up she continued,

Iiiiiii llllllooooovvveee yyyyoooouuu.

I shook my head and turned her over, taking the battery out but relieved the danger was over.  Then I heard the pounding. On my front door.  Six heavy fists hitting the wood.  Six voices shouting my name. Six hands desperately jingling the now locked door.

My help had arrived.  My phone began incessantly ringing and my face flushed with pure embarassment.

Dragging my feet as their pounding became more urgent I went to the door. I put the chain on the door and pulled it open so I could peek out. Twelve wild eyes peered back at me.

Hey…hi guys.

Sunny, open the door. NOW! What is going on? Are you okay? Did he escape? Are you hurt? Is he holding you captive? Blink twice if you want us to call the cops. OPEN THE DOOR!

Oh…umm…hey…wow, you guys got here fast.  See…the thing is…you’re going to think this is just hilarious…there was no intruder and you can go home now.

Confusion darkened the eyes peering through the small slit at me. I closed the door, slid off the chain and opened the door to reveal my intruder to them.  The small plastic Cabbage Patch doll who had once said a number of catch phrases, giggled and coo’d but who was now a doll whose battery had slowly been expiring leaving behind a series of deep, low phrases…obviously designed to be spoken quietly so an not to be heard.

Love Always,
Sunny

Filed under Friends · Tagged with Collections, dolls, embarrassing, intruder, scary