Photo courtesy Sandra Gabriel via Unsplash

My parents often dressed me in a too-short cherry-printed dress I had

outgrown. Photos of our family at Niagara Falls and there 

I am in the cherry dress hanging just below my waist exposing my

yellow terry cloth underwear. I wore them or was clothed in them 

so often it became a principal part of my repertoire as in when 

my Barbie needed an elegant gown, it was the yellow terry cloth 

underwear that I wrapped underneath her arms and tri-folded

to a  skin-tight-fit secured with a safety pin. My best friend 

came over with her Barbie doll, dressed in a Miss America style 

formal satin gown. She inspected my Barbie’s yellow

terry cloth gown, unfastened it and shrieked,

It’s your underwear! Flung it like infected garbage across the room.  

No one told me you shouldn’t share underwear 

with your Barbie doll. What was once chic was now FOBby.  

I couldn’t wear the yellow terry cloth underwear after that and  

begged my mom to buy me satin underwear like Miss America.