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Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: CABBAGE PATCH LETTER
From: joltes@husc7.harvard.edu (Richard Joltes)
Date: 11 Nov 1993 00:12:45 GMT

rogers.cadenhead@chrysalis.org writes:

>To: Dick Joltes
>
>How did you start that UL in Wheeling, and how far did it get before it was
>quashed by the Brunvands of the world?
>
>Rogers

How did we start it? Well, working at Sears, near the toy department, during the height of the Cabbage Patch rush (a mob scene occurred in the K-Mart at the other end of the mall during this period...) helped quite a bit. Being a college student at the time was advantageous. Hating the damn dolls was a plus.

So, on those occasions when I worked in the checkout booth, I'd wait 'till some schmuck came up with one of the dolls. I'd ring it up, make some small talk, then look at the doll and say "gee, I heard these things were designed to get people used to what mutants might look like after a nuke war." Then I'd stuff the ugly, disgusting doll into the bag and check out the reaction. Often it was "no way," but you could see the doubt in the eyes that said "when I get home I'm gonna tell somebody about this." It was also obvious that I'd planted the seed in their mind (and anyone else close enough to be within earshot) and that was all that was necessary.

A few of the other cashier-types (I was a part-time sales guy in Hardware, but got called into the booth on occasion) picked up the story, and I heard a few of them repeat the proto-UL upon selling a doll.

A few of my classes were good breeding grounds. Once we were discussing Ronnie Raygun's nuke policies in a PolySci class and I "repeated" the story "someone had told me" as an amusing anecdote. At least one person said "I always wondered why they were so damn ugly..."

I told the story to my mother, who worked in a local department store as a manager/buyer. No proof, but given Ma's proclivities for Old Wives Tales I *know* she spread it to at least one other person. I had help from some friends who also hated the dolls, and they told the tale (which we'd pretty well standardized to the line mentioned above in order to track mutations) whenever it was reasonable.

It was really gratifying when, during a conversation with a friend at our local video arcade (located in the same Mall as my Sears store) I overheard someone repeat the UL, WITH A MUTATION (as in "did you know that the gov't asked the manufacturer to make the dolls this ugly to get people used to what mutants looked like?")! I only heard it come back one more time, and it was pretty much in the form in which we'd spread it. No idea whether it made it to other areas.

We dropped the idea after a few months, when the "rage" for the dolls dropped off. Oh well...