Cinderella's Slipper

Just like lots of other girls my age, I played with Barbies when I was young. I have so many stories about my dolls; it’s hard not to tell them all.

My earliest memory of my Barbies was when I lived at my first house. I was less than five years old and I was at that time an only child. Somewhere I had received a Cinderella-esque Barbie doll, complete with glass slippers. I had been playing with my doll in the living room/foyer area of the house, which was completely carpeted. I remember that Barbie shoes were endlessly frustrating. Either you couldn’t get them on, they wouldn’t stay on, or you couldn’t find them to begin with. This event was a combination of all three scenarios. In my frustration in trying to get my Cinderella’s glass slippers back on her tiny feet, I threw the tiny shoe across the room. The next part, I remember most clearly, even though I’ve been told it is impossible. As I lay belly down on the living room carpet, looking at the forlorn slipper on top of the carpet, it began to slowly sink into the scratchy, woolen abyss. I was horrified that the carpet, one of the few household items that was hardly ever a main character in horror films, could eat my prized Barbie shoe. I rushed over to the site, clawing at the carpet, but to no avail. The slipper was gone.

It’s funny to think that I remember this incident with almost cinematic clarity. I’m not altogether sure why I am still so hung up on the mystery of the shoe, except perhaps, that I still don’t know the answer. It could be that I miscalculated the location of the slipper on the floor, and overlooked it by only a few feet, or even inches. It could be that after giving up my fruitless search, my mom tried to vacuum, and the shoe (being notoriously small) got sucked into the infinite dust bin. It could also be that, being overlooked by both myself and rejected by the vacuum, it was unceremoniously chewed up by our family cat. And finally, it could have been that, after being overlooked, rejected, and hacked up by the cat, it was scooped up and thrown out, just a mangled piece of glittery plastic.

But, there is literally no magic in that outcome. Even after going through all the possible rational outcomes for my Barbie shoe, my memory rejects each one. I am stuck on believing in the childhood mystery that my tiny Cinderella slipper was sucked into the carpet, almost like it sunk in a muddy bog, never to be seen again. I think it’s the whimsy that I’m stuck on. Maybe, even when I was little, I recognized the importance of whimsy in a child’s life. And now I can keep it alive. I truly believe that carpet ate my toy shoe, and that someday, if I were to ever meet that carpet again, there would be a tiny lump where it is somehow still digesting the glittery plastic.

(Photos from here and here)