Jackson Free Press

My favorite dive bar has a glass display case featuring action figures of all the bartenders. There's Tonya, the retro-50s glam gal with her carefully combed bangs and lacy skirts; and Todd, the curly-haired, regular-guy guy wearing a button down; and Buck, the pierced and tattooed fella wearing black Carhartts and a ripped T-shirt—all in miniature. Details. Their ability to capture the essence of a person in molded plastic is eerie. This is why, when I found myself outside of Toys 'R' Us, I couldn't help but go in—I wondered what do these dolls drive?

My visit began benignly, in the ages 2-plus section—dump trucks and race cars. A company called Shelcore Toys sells a line of Light N' Sound toys that kick butt. My favorite was the Chunky Farm Rig: it comes with a horse and cow on the trailer, and when a button is pressed, the headlights flash and you hear either a cow moo, a horse neigh, or the belch of a diesel rig.

But as I moved into the older kids' section, everything started to get just a little bit too mature for me. There were things called My Scene dolls. The vibe is late 1990s hipster, with dyed streaky hair and decadent retro furniture. My Scene's cars are very specific toward cruising. The black convertible—Cruisin' In My Ride gift set—has leopard-skin seats, water bottles, sunglasses and a gold cell phone. At least they do have seatbelts. Remember Barbie's 1962 Austin Healy convertible? Total deathmobile. The My Scene dolls also can drive the My Beach Ride. It's a gold dune buggy with water bottles and towels. Note that for some reason, water bottles now spell fun. The ad copy on the box of the car is hilarious: "You gotta have the right wheels to seal the deal when you're cruisin' the sand in Jamaica, right?" Wow, what deal are we talking about—drugs or sex? I rechecked the age group on the box three times: 6 plus.

Then I moved on to the Bratz. Bratz dolls have names like Dana, Yasmine, Jade, and Cloe, and they also look very hip, and disturbingly like some friends of mine. They've only got one car, but, boy, is it a doozy: the FM Cruiser. The FM comes with one-of-a-kind license plates that have interchangeable frames. The horn beeps, and the brake and front lights flash. It's got black furry seats, a real FM radio, cup holder, and moveable shifter. Though it isn't "branded," it looks like a convertible '63 Lincoln Continental. It's an icy color of pink. In short—a total pimp-mobile. The dolls that drive the car wear leopard skin pants and have exposed midriffs and tons of accessories like blush, earrings, hair baubles. I found myself wondering, where's the coke straw?

Moving down the aisle, I never thought I'd feel relieved to see Barbie in my life. But I was. Not only did she look positively dowdy compared to the Bratz or My Scene dolls, she's got some very unhip-looking friends named Midge and Alan who not only have terrible hair but have been squeezing out babies like crazy. Their car? The Volvo Happy Family, of course, a turquoise hatchback with a sunroof, and a pink baby seat with a baby.

A real human mom saw me taking notes and approached. "Don't these seem kind of, er, mature for 6 and up?" I asked her.
"Yeah," she said, "Thank God I have boys."
"So, what do your boys play with?" I had barely skimmed the military heavy boys section, noticing a lot of Army jeeps and a Transformer that went from a red convertible into a red robot that used the engine as a gun.
"Hot Wheels."

At about $3.99 for five little cars with brands like Corvette, Smart Car, and BMW, this seemed so welcomingly sedate. So appropriate. I gasped a sigh of relief and tousled her boys' hair in my mind.

Novella reads her e-mail when she's not at the toy store: [e-mail missing]