Hello Dolly

I used to have a nice little collection of porcelain dolls.  There were probably four or five of them, all given to me by my mom's good friend.  They seemed a little boring to me, but they were pretty enough, with their pink satin dresses and corkscrew curls.  You couldn't actually play with them but they looked pleasant, sitting on my dresser and gathering dust.

Then, I read a book called "Annabelle" by Ruby Jean Jensen when I was nine years old.  It's a book about porcelain dolls who come to life and murder people. Soon after, my mom went into my room to put away laundry and opened my closet door.  All of the dolls were lined up facing the back wall.  As she gazed upon this sight, I came in the room and screamed.  "Close the door!  CLOSE IT NOW!!!"  My doll collecting days were over.

I have decided to revisit the terror of my youth by doing a little shopping.  I ordered "Annabelle" along with two other books that terrified the crap out of me as a kid, "The Headless Cupid" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder and "Wait Til Helen Comes" by Mary Downing Hahn.  I am planning on reading them and sleeping with the lights on.  Unless a collection doll comes and kills me in which case all bets are off.