When you get old, a certain childish idiocy descends because minds are like rubberbands that stretch and stretch for only so long and then snap back into their original size and shape. Or completely break.
Edwin the Earnest is a magic dragon. He’s a cousin to Puff from Honnalee. And he only exists because my seriously old and stretched brain and arthritic hands created him with colored pencils and paper. He is the perfect one to explain about Mickey’s doll-collecting and quirky coot behavior.
“Mickey has rules he follows for doll collecting. And these rules expose his skinflint cootishness. He’s a cheap old bastard. (Sorry, I know magic dragons should not use bad words. But I have had one too many Puffs of Mary Jane’s Magic Leaves with my cousin Puff to guard my forked tongue.)”
“No doll he buys should cost more than twenty dollars. Rescue dolls from Goodwill are better than mint-in-box dolls off the toy store shelf. His collection started in childhood where he played with G.I. Joes as his sisters played with Barbie and Tammy dolls. So, basically, we are talking about twelve-inch action figures and dolls from Hasbro, Mattel, and Marx.”
“In the above picture, you see an Addison Rae doll from the Walmart Clearance shelves ($5.) The blue Barbie (probably a fairy with wings) cost fifty cents at Goodwill naked, and now she wears the swimsuit of a $5 Summer Surfer Barbie. The third doll is Hermoine from the Harry Potter series for $14.”
“Some dolls in the collection are nudists. Ricky, a Barbie child from the 60s, cost Mickey $12 on E-bay. Any wearable clothing from the same period was more than twice what the doll cost… just for pants! Tammy, another old doll bought from the fifty-cent bin at Goodwill, could only fit rare Skipper and Francie togs that were way too costly. So, nudists! They have not worn any clothes for the ten years Mickey has owned them both. Aquaman here is also nude and his clothing is carved right on his skin. He cannot wear clothes made of cloth.”
“Mickey loves the kind of dolls that represent in both size and maturity the kids he once taught. Anakin Skywalker and Stacy, Barbie’s little sister, are close to the seventh graders he mostly taught during his teaching career.”
“And, of course, Mickey is such an old coot that soon he will have to decide to reduce or eliminate his doll collection to go live with his sister in Iowa as he gets older and stupider and cootier while waiting to die. The Mandalorian with Baby Yoda Grogu is one of the last dolls bought by Mickey. Possibly the last one ever. But all good things come to an end. Thankfully, so do bad things. The rubber band has to snap back to small.”
Catch a Falling Star 