A Portrait of Polly (Pocket) in 827 Tiny Pieces

Two weeks ago I photographed my kids gigantic Barbie collection. This week I'm documenting Polly Pocket: A Portrait in 827 Tiny Pieces.

Here, I present the Polly Pocket dolls all twenty-something of them:

But the Polly Pocket dolls are not the main part of the story. The real story of Polly Pocket is the itty-bitty accessories. The nineteen purses.

The fourteen pairs of matching shoes.

And in our case, the thirty-five unmatched shoes:

My mother and I, who are both clearly a similar type of crazy, spend forever matching the shoes. We put them in pairs, in little plastic boxes.

We admonished the children, "Put the shoes back in the itty bitty plastic boxes when you're done!"

We begged the children, "Please, please don't mix-up the shoes!"

Of course, they don't listen. Instead of matched shoes in the itty bitty boxes, there is this:

Sigh.

But what really gets me is who makes these shoes? Are "they" out to drive moms (and grandmas) out of their minds? Who thinks to make eight pairs of hot pink doll shoes that are all different, yes oh-so-very-similar.

Look closely. These are nine more pink shoes. That don't match. Not a one.

And maybe now it's time for me to stop matching shoes, and instead, to take the advice of an older friend, whose children are now grown (and who turned out just fine).

She told me, after listening to a particularly long tale of Polly and her shoe collection, "Quit talking about how the Polly Pocket shoes keep getting lost and get out the damn vacuum. Life is too short."

What do you think - should Polly and her shoe collection get the vacuum?

I'm linking-up to Finding the Funny. Because that's what I like to do.

Head over to Kelley's Break Room and My Life and Kids to read a lot of really funny stuff.