Muammar Al Khadafi

Ahhhh….K-Mart…those often talked about but rarely seen… “Blue-Light Specials”…

when decent, God fearing housewives would politely run, not walk, to the centre of the department store, for dessert plates at only $1.15 each for the next ten minutes…

Blue-Light Specials were almost never found in the Toy Department in those days but that was okay because it gave us kids time without our Mothers, to ponder our next Barbie-doll purchase…

How were we to know that buying K-Tel would help the Cartel grow omniscient?

It’s not like we kids KNEW back then that Barbie’s were made from plastic and plastic was a petroleum product. Heck, we walked around in public at the ripe old age of six never having known that. So the Barbie’s were bought, the play never ended and the Middle Eastern countries, thanks to MsBurb, got out from under their desert sand-laden Bedouin tents and wore designer bed sheets in palaces made of gold instead.

And I know, don’t remind me, that double-record album set of the Partridge Family I conned my Mother into buying me for a whopping $11.99 helped instigate the 1974 gas shortage in America too!

I didn’t mean to do it. How was I to know that cars the size of Winnebago's needed that much fuel? But, then again, who knew the driver of a 1974 Mercury or Buick had to swing the steering wheel right to make enough axle room for the “boat” to turn left?

Ahhh those were the days, weren’t they?

As the newscasts droned on and on about the fuel shortage, about the Cartel’s control over oil and North America’s need for that gooey black gunk, I and my girlfriends were fanning the petroleum crisis flames right on our bedroom carpets…plastic Barbie campers, plastic Barbie tents, heck, even a plastic Barbie Beauty Salon with accompanying plastic hair dryer…

If our parents would have told us what we were doing instead of just harping on and on about starving children in Africa because we refused to eat our broccoli, maybe North America would be courting REAL kings instead of desert rats pretending to be kings.

Maybe if I’d refrained from buying yet another set of fashionable plastic shoes for Barbie No.#15, we’d never have had any use for the word “Cartel” and continued to shop “K-Tel” instead.

I’ve been thinking lately that if handing in my Barbie dolls and K-Tel record collection to bin Laden would help end this War on Terrorism, I would sacrifice and give for the Cause…

I left a message at the White House reception Desk, that I would be willing to do my part.

They haven’t got back to me yet.

I never did find the plastic container which housed the mini playing cards in the  candy and prize vending machines at K-Mart. But if I’d known those plastic containers sparked the Middle East crisis, I would have stopped feeding my nickels into those machines in my quest for prize gold.

There were allot of things we kids didn’t know back then and as we drove home with our Mothers, the plastic wrap tearing off our latest purchase as we sat there in the car, we would have taken a second thought as to whether or not those plastic Barbie-doll sized Go-Go boots were really necessary.

But as our Moms drove into the gas station to fill up Betsy for the umpteenth time, they never told us we were at fault.

If Obama decides to put a gigantic Blue Box on the front lawn of the White House for recycling Barbie dolls and K-Tel records, you know, as a final act in stopping this war, would you people please let ol’ MsBurb know. I don’t have the plastic wrap anymore on any of these play toy items but maybe the Cartel won’t mind…