Poetry Response #7, "Chatty Cathy"

In eighth grade, my English teacher called me Chatty Cathy. I told her I didn’t know what that was, that it must have been before my time, and she was heavily offended, telling the other classes that one of her students called her old. Granted, she had the facial wrinkles of a seventy year old but the body of someone half that, so how was I to know her real age? I asked my mom about the doll that afternoon and she resurrected hers out of the basement and gently wiped off the thick layer of dust coating it. “Well, this one was actually your Aunt Leslie’s because she was about 8 when they came out, so she had more use for it. Then Aunt Kelly got one but Karen and I never got new ones, so we were handed down these when the girls got older. Leslie’s is in great shape, see,” she thrust one blond, blue-eyed, creepily smiling doll at me. “She gave it to Karen because she thought her more responsible. They rarely pulled the string, so it still talks, unlike mine. Oh my little Cathy talked to death.” She chuckled, gazing wistfully at the holder of many childhood afternoons: days in Grandma’s garden, matching haircuts and dresses, hot summer days in the pool. I held Aunt Leslie’s (Aunt Karen’s) Chatty Cathy and daintily pulled the string in her back; “I’m Chatty Cathy. Who are you?” Um...creepy. I pulled it again: “Tee-hee, tee-hee, tee-hee. You’re silly!” It was just like the talking Barbie stowed away under my bed, or the demonic Furby sitting in my sister’s closet. Why do girls like talking toys so much?
I brought my Mom’s Cathy to English the next day to show my class (no one knew what a Chatty Cathy was, either, so take THAT Mrs. Hawkins). I pulled the string and choruses of, “When you grow up, what do you want to do?”, “It’s fun to learn your ABC’s!”, and “Let’s make believe you’re Mommy,” filled the room. Even thought the girls were on the cusp on teenager-dome, something magnetic pulled each one to the doll. What is it with talking dolls?
“Yeah, my mom said they had matching clothes, kind of like American Girl Dolls,” I told them.
“Wow, that thing is creepy,” the boys said. “Like a girl Chucky.”
The poem, written by a man, evokes that same aura. How did this play thing wrap so many girls in rapture, while the boys saw it for what it really was: an eerie doll that repeated the same recordings over and over, shaking the house with it’s chipper voice and repetitive giggles. David Trinidad must have had a sister who was enamored with her Chatty Cathy, and it’s voice echoed down the corridor when he tried to sleep. No matter how many times his dad threatened to take that doll away, his sister stayed up late with it, way beyond her bedtime, reading it stories and pulling her string. Poor David, venting his hatred for this doll in a villanelle—but what a perfect outlet, choosing the one poetic structure where he can mock the doll and warn any future parents against purchasing it. I mean, just look at the annoying redundancy of the poem; who wants THAT in their house?