Trash, treasure

I spent yesterday morning at the indoor cleanup for Beth's preschool. They do this three times a year, and it was actually pretty fun, despite starting at 8am. Waaaay too early in my book...but there you go.

As I was going through bins and bins of old curricula and books and dress-ups and toys — and throwing out anything unusable — I noticed that someone had thrown out a doll. A My Friend Mandy doll. That's part of my childhood, folks. She had ink all over her face and legs, and her hair was a mess, and her cloth body was stained, but...Mandy! So I pulled her out of the pile and held her up for the director to see.

"Are you seriously throwing this away?" I asked. "Do you know what these things are worth on eBay?"

She gave me a dubious look. "Well...if you want to sell it on eBay and give the money to the Fundraising Committee...."

So I brought Mandy home, threw her in the wash to clean her up (Fisher Price was definitely on the ball when they made a machine-washable doll), and looked up her value on eBay (about $15, though a new-in-box doll fetches around $90) as well as some ways to clean her up (thick conditioner should work wonders on her hair).

Halfway through combing out her hair I realized I didn't want to sell her. Want to know why?

See any resemblance?

So the after-nap conversation went something like this:

"Sarah, who does this dolly look like?"

"Beff!"

We went upstairs to find Beth. "Bethie, who does this dolly look like?"

"I don't know." Pensive look. "ME!" Then she had to take a look at herself in the mirror with Mandy.

She's staying. I'll write a check to the fundraising committee tomorrow. I hope Beth enjoys her half as much as I enjoyed mine.