Mrs. Bennet buys acne cream for a doll!

Thursday, October 1 09

Children, Mrs. Bennet realised, took you to places you never ever expected to go. They also forced you to learn things you hadn’t realised you needed to learn. Such was the case for Mrs. Bennet who was doing her best to prevent the eldest Miss Bennets from venturing anywhere near the male shed. The female version was kept clean, orderly and used as a retreat and office for Mrs. Bennet alone. The male equivalent was quite simply a mess, but proved a useful place to hide anything. It was currently hiding two Baby Annabell dolls.
As Mrs. Bennet was endeavouring to polish up any art skills she had, so too were her offspring. One afternoon, while the older Miss Bennets were painting piggy banks, Spag and Bol, their younger siblings were happily applying their artistic marks to two plastic faces. Mrs. Bennet was changing in the room next door and could hear their happy giggles. Investigating to see just what was so funny, Mrs Bennet caught them in the act. Ball-point pens in hand, they had applied their permanent squiggles and marks on to the cheeks and foreheads of each doll. Hiding the plastic babies was one thing; trying to remove the tattoos was another. After Mrs. Bennet’s attempts to apply nail varnish remover hadn’t worked, somehow Mr. Bennet had smuggled the clothe-less babes down to his side of the shed and had failed miserably to remove the Spag and Bol imprints with mentholated spirits. If that didn’t work, what would? These dolls weren’t cheap, and the Miss Bennets who the dolls belonged to, were not going to be very happy. Not very happy at all.
Mrs. Bennet went to work that night and consulted Mr. Google for help. He was able to suggest various ideas: baking soda paste, vegetable oil, carpet cleaner, adhesive remover and even evaporated milk. According to fellow parents who had also suffered the same ball-point baby defacing problem, none of the fore-mentioned had proved to be the answer. But there was one product which apparently did and there was even photographic evidence to prove it. The solution? Acne cream containing 10% benzyl peroxide. Apply it to the doll and then stick her in sunlight for a few hours and hey presto all the marks disappear.
So here Mrs. Bennet was on her way to a chemist to buy acne cream. Not for a teenager, but for a doll. And if the pharmacist dared to ask her if she had used the cream before or had had any side effects, she knew she would probably not be able to contain herself. Her side effect was a fit of giggles.