ShopCrone shocked by new Barbie doll

ShopCrone here, wondering if anyone else in Reader Land experienced the senior moment that I did on a recent Saturday morning.

There I was, sitting at the breakfast table with ShopCrone Hubby, flipping through the newspaper, when I began to rifle through the chez Target circular. Past the Easter candy and the pastel baskets, past the electric griddles and the coffeemakers and onto the toys.

There was the My Little Pony set, the Disney Princess Cinderella fashion doll and all those adorable Bratz dolls swimming in their own plastic pool, sitting on their own beach chairs and leaning around their own tiki bar. I should be so lucky as those dolls.

I scanned the page: Jamaica Barbie, Fairytopia Barbie, Call Girl Barbie.

Call Girl Barbie?

At $3.94 it was the cheapest Barbie on the page, but Call Girl Barbie? I know Barbie has gone through more metamorphoses than Madonna, but had Mattel lost its ever-loving mind? Had the toy designers at the Big M been over-Britneyed? Had the Janet Jackson bosom revelation fried their gray cells?

Was this result of Barbie’s split with Ken?

I looked again. It could be Call Girl Barbie. She was the usual blonde, tan figure with the disproportionate proportions. She was dressed in a red-and-white bra top, black vest and red shorts.

Add some platform shoes, and she could be standing on Sunset Boulevard flagging down the likes of Hugh Grant.

There was a male figure posed in the box next to Barbie. Was his name John?

Well, I thought, that explains the clothes, the dream house and the car. My usual Barbie materialism envy definitely was dampened.

At this point, ShopCrone Hubby was snorting his coffee out his nose with laughter.

“Put your glasses on,” he said. “I thought the same thing. Read it again.”

I placed my high-powered eyesight enhancers on my nose and read something about the doll coming with “cool California fashions.”

“Oh,” I said. “Cali Girl Barbie.”

NEWS assignment editor Jeanne Curran is a victim of presbyopia from reading too many fashion magazines.