Welcome to the Weekly Guest Spotlight

Joani PlentyTonight’s guest is writer, Joani Plenty. For more about Joani, click on her photo to visit her website.

I spanked my dolls. Don’t judge me.

Back in the day, when jailbreak meant getting your friends out of an imaginary prison without being tagged; “You’re going down!” wasn’t an ignored sexual-slur from your husband after three beers but a battle cry before a dodge ball game, and being “sick” was a bad thing, parenting methods were a bit different than they are today.

Being an only child had, and will always have, its perks. The television channel, dinner choice and prize at the bottom of the cereal box, were all mine! Mine. Mine. Mine. This simple knifelike word, if used for evil, could make other kids evaporate into thin air. So, of course, I used my powers wisely. For instance, as an only child, using a statement like, “I’m taking my ball and going home!” was like Wonder Woman leaving the Justice League; without her, everyone else is just a bunch of lackadaisical chumps in silly underwear. Hence, I saved that one for when I really needed to go in for the kill.

Being an only child had its bad points too, though:

If my friends couldn’t come out to play; I was pretty lonely.
I was blamed for everything (for good reason; whatever it was…I did it).
There wasn’t anyone to have my back in a fight after I ran my mouth recklessly on the school bus.

An only-child’s imagination is like a sixth sense. I’m a Pisces and an only child. This caused the creative snow globe that sat atop my shoulders to be constantly worked; lie after…I mean story after story. I would tell people that I had a sister named Stacy but no one ever saw her because she was traveling with gypsies; performing disco songs. Well, except Tuesdays and Thursdays when she was teaching Linda Carter self-defense.

I grew up in the late 70s and 80s but, because I was raised by my Grandmother, I was two decades behind all of my friends. I remember, like it was yesterday, when I was in the 3rd grade and my friends came over to listen to music for the first time. I looked like a complete freakazoid when I eagerly pulled out my chunky, rectangular, Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis 8-tracks. The money stolen from my Grandmother’s purse to buy new friends and regain my “street cred” could have bought me, and all of my dolls, like twenty boxes of sugary-sour ‘Lemon Heads’.

I shared everything with my dolls. They were my sisters. Especially “Nancy”. She was my favorite. “Nancy” was everything that I wasn’t because, again, reality was stupid and something only rich kids and pessimists had to endure. She had long blonde hair (until I cut it all off after watching ‘Mommy Dearest’), a confused and aloof look on her face due to my Grandmother’s Southern Comfort that I used to pour into her sippy cup and was as tall as I me.

Yup! We were pretty tight. When I would have a fight with my best friend, Dana (who was also an only child so there was a very thin line between love and hate), and needed to replace her for a few days, Nancy’s hand was always the first to go up. I took her everywhere that I went. This drove my Grandmother crazy because she was too cool for such nonsense. Her children didn’t even call her “mom” but by her first name, instead. It was definitely a cramp in Grandmom’s style having me, and a life-sized doll with a buzz cut, shoved into the barely-there backseat of her brown corvette.

The problem with Nancy was that she was a little too flippant for her own good. This, along with my low tolerance for bullshit, meant that I had to, sometimes, “lay the smack down”. One day, needing a break from deep thought over how I was going to earn enough money to beat my Frogger high score at the arcade, I decided to take Nancy for a ride in Grandmom’s corvette. I waited until I heard my Grandmother laughing loudly while watching “Blondie” or some other not-so-funny-yet-you-can’t-look-away black and white show on television. I quietly reached for her car key. You couldn’t miss it; it was the one on the big yardstick-looking keychain that said, “Stitch & Bitch”. I grabbed Nancy by her ankle (the rest of her body was under my bed…what was I supposed to do? I was in a hurry. This was no time to play effin “Hide & Seek”). I quietly shut the front door and headed for what was now, in my head, my “K.I.T.T” (Knight Industries Two Thousand); my sports car of the future. Pffftttt. Who wishes she didn’t argue with me over whether or not Bo Duke was hotter than Luke Duke now, Dana?!

I put my new BFF, Nancy, into the passenger seat and went around to become one with “K.I.T.T” in the driver’s seat. I placed the key into the ignition and fiddled around with the buttons. Pressing, twisting and pulling everything that shined. I didn’t care which buttons were which because “K.I.T.T” does all of the driving anyway. Just then, I felt a sinking flutter in my belly.

“Were we always this far from the curb?” I thought. “Grandmom needs to work on her parking skills.”

*BEEP*

My heart jumped. I was scared shitless. Well, more like shitFULL. My neighbor laying her heavy, wrinkled, gaudy-ringed hands onto the horn of her car, was a newly discovered, natural, laxative. To make matters worse, I looked over at Nancy who was slouched in the passenger seat on her way to the floor smiling at me. I was furious! I didn’t see the humor in our near death experience, the fact that “K.I.T.T” malfunctioned, or that the only reason my Grandmother wasn’t outside beating me with my own plastic “Jelly” belt was because she was searching high and low for my “Jelly” shoe, instead.

“Are you laughing at me, Nancy?” I asked. “Wha…what did you say? Oooooh, you want to talk back!”

I flew the car door open and headed over to the passenger side of the “Vette”; but not before it whipped back at me and knocked my frail, thin body onto the ground. Sometimes I don’t know my own super-strength. I yanked Nancy out of the car, took off my “Jelly” belt, pulled down her pants and proceeded to whop her plastic, peach-crayon colored backside rapidly. It hurt me more than it hurt her, I’m sure.

Just then, like a ninja, my Grandmother appeared behind me.

“If you don’t get your ass and that bald-headed doll into the house right now, I’m going to show you how it’s really done.” she said, through a closed mouth and gritted teeth, like the worlds best ventriloquist.

By now I was crying hysterically (because that’s how only-children cry), thinking of a master plan to remove my Grandmother from the planet and no longer calling “Nancy” my BFF. “Maybe Dana wants to come over.” I thought. “Eric Estrada is hotter than both Bo and Luke. #truestory

Thank you Joani! I think I’ve discovered a little more than I wanted to know about your kinky tendencies…doll spanking of all things. ;) Ok, so maybe I spanked a few dolls in my day. But it’s not like they didn’t deserve it!

Until the next time…I’ll be digging out a few dolls, just for old time sake.