“Some things never change,” thought Barbie. “You would think after all these years Ken and Alan would stop exposing their junk,” she laughed heartily recalling old times. Of course, the old times were before the incident. It seems like just yesterday when Alan injured his knee during the hostile war between Mattel and Colorforms.

Even before the guys met Barbie, Ken was the brain and Alan was the brawn. Decades had past since what they now called “the incident” and slowly the dynamics of their relationship became reversed. No longer able to play tennis or scuba dive, Alan’s role was relegated to more physically simple tasks such as surgery or accounting. Ken, still refusing to wear pants during any circumstances, came up with the idea of Dumpster Diving for spare parts.

As Ken and Alan revealed their latest find to Barbie, they started singing in perfect unison,

She’s got legs, she knows how to use ‘em
She never begs, she knows how to chose ‘em
Were holdin’ legs, wonderin’ how to use ‘em
I’d love to get behind ‘em
Hey Barbie would you mind ‘em
She’s my baby, she’s my baby
Yeah, it’s alright.

Barbie laughed out loud as they presented the bendable legs. “Those are Francie‘s legs!”

“We don’t care who they came from, Barbie,” said Alan. “For years I listened to you tell me to grow a pair. I know you were referring to my junk but I had a lot of time to think while we were in separate totes. I knew if I ever got out of the storage unit I planned to find a pair and ask you to be mine. When Ken suggested Dumpster Diving and I saw the legs, well the plan took on a life of it’s own.”

Unable to keep her mouth shut any longer, Tressy interrupted the conversation. “I have alopecia,” she sobbed. “Did your Dumpster Diving get you any closer to helping me?”

Barbie sneered. “It’s always about you, isn’t Tressy.”

Tressy lowered her eyes in shame, knowing that this was Alan’s time to be optimistic.

Barbie’s slightly moldy face broken into a grin.

“I did a little Dumpster Diving of my own, Tressy,” said Barbie as she broke into song.

I’ve got heads, you’ll know how to use ‘em
I’ve got heads, juts try not to lose ‘em
I’d love to let you have ‘em
Girl, you’ve got to have ‘em
These heads are alright.

And for the four friends, separated for decades in the storage unit, it was as though they had always been together. They laughed with gusto, reliving old times and looking forward to new times with better body parts. Barbie vowed to share Ken and Alan with Tressy.

Tressy wasn’t thinking about their reunion or the generous gift of spare heads and attractive wigs. She was wondering if anyone would notice what happened during their years apart. This was worse than Alan’s knee, worse than Barbie’s mold tinged face, more disgraceful than Ken’s diminutive package. This was about the damage caused by Brainsuckers. “How long before anyone notices”, wondered Tressy.

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