On our way to North Carolina, we needed to do a couple of things so we wouldn’t arrive too early! As I looked at our route, I noticed we were going through Cleveland! I wasn’t sure if Abby was too old for a Cabbage Patch Kid, but even if she was, I figured Babyland General would be an interesting stop. Despite my history going back to the beginning of the Cabbage Patch Kids, I had never been to Babyland General. When I was in high school and College, I worked at a retail store called Lay’s, much like Dollar General. When the Cabbage Patch Craze began we could not keep the dolls in stock and people started getting crazy. I have two very distinct memories of that time. The first was that my boss would let each employee buy 2 dolls out of each stock that came in. I always bought my 2 for 19.99 each and turned around and sold them for around 100 dollars each. If people are crazy enough to pay it, who am I to argue. That was a lot of money at the time considering I was making about 3.85 an hour. The second was even crazier. As the stock boy, my boss gave me the job of putting out the dolls. One other stock boy and myself would carry the boxes to the stockroom door and wait. We had cleared out a huge area in the back of the store. We had a security guard from the mall come down! (Yeah, it was that crazy!) My boss then gave us a signal and we ran the boxes to the open space, tore them open and spread them out, and ran back to the stockroom. While we were doing that, my boss went on the loud speaker and announced we had Cabbage Patch Kids! At that point, the stampede started. Word spread all over the mall in seconds and people came running to the store. We watched through the stockroom window and it was fascinating! People would grab any doll they could. The security guard had to break up more than one fight when 2 people grabbed the same doll! It was like that for almost an entire year and then it just stopped. We would get dolls in and they would sit on the shelves for weeks before they sold. It is amazing how people just have to have something so bad and so fast that they can’t wait a little while. It was a fun thing to be a part of though.
Now, back to our trip. I asked Abby if she wanted to go to Babyland General and she was very excited, so I guess she isn’t too old. When we got to Cleveland, Phyllis stayed outside with Beast while the kids went in with me. I think even the boys were fascinated whether they would admit it or not. Babyland General is really just a huge, well themed store, but the theme is what makes it special. All the workers dressed like nurses and the whole place is set up like a fantasy land. We got to see the ‘birth” of a Cabbage Patch Kid, the nursery and all of the other phases of a dolls life. Abby decided she definitely wanted a doll, but then she had to decide which one. That was a chore. She looked and looked at all the ones in our price range and then looked some more. She had a couple of false starts with dolls she liked, but then she changed her mind. Finally she found her doll! We paid for it and then went to get her birth certificate. She took the Oath to be a good parent, which was so cute and then named her doll Gabriella! It was such a sweet moment
After we got Gabriella settled, we headed out. Abby held that doll like it was a real baby. It was so sweet. I just love moments like these. It was a great way to start our trip and we had many more great activities ahead!
