My Uncanny Valley Experience ~ The Doll from Hell

 

I received the doll when I was 3 or 4-years-old.  She was a gift from my Aunt, and she was the same size as me.  She had shoulder length auburn hair and bangs, big blue eyes with dark lashes, a stretchy narrow gold headband, a light blue and white party dress, and black patent leather Mary Jane shoes.  She eventually found a permanent spot in my upstairs bedroom, and this is where she stayed for many years to come, and so did I.

I grew to be very afraid of this doll, and I grew to hate her.

It started when I was about 6-years-old.  I would get an uneasy feeling around this doll.  She stood as a sentinel at my bedroom door, and I would have to pass by her every time I entered or exited the room.  I noticed that when I did this, the hair on the back of my neck would stand up.  This is something that I kept to myself, thinking it was just me.  I never told anyone of my experiences, or even how I felt about this doll.

But there was an even more disturbing phenomena, which became more pronounced and troubling with time, and it's also something that I never told anyone... out of the corner of my eye, with my peripheral vision, I would see this doll move.  She would raise an arm slightly, or turn her head.  And I always had the unnerving feeling that it was watching me.

One day, when I was about 9-years-old, I was exiting my bedroom door, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw the doll raise her arm.  Without hesitation, I bolted down the short hallway, spun around the banister at the top of the stairs, took the first 2 or 3 steps, and then leaped from the staircase to the floor below.  I don't know how I did this without getting hurt.  I didn't go back upstairs for hours that day.  I put it off as long as I could, dreading going back up to my room.

When my grandmother passed away, I was 28 and still living in this house, still the inhabitant of the upstairs bedroom, and that wretched doll still stood guard at that bedroom doorway.  Now, having the house to myself, I picked it up and shoved it in the upstairs hallway closet.  Everytime I passed through my bedroom doorway and walked down that short hallway, past the closet door, the hair on the back of my neck would stand up.

Fast forward decades later, I'm 36-years-old.  I'm visitng my Aunt in South Dakota, and my sister had come out to her house to visit as well.  My Aunt dug out photo albums from our childhood, and my sister and I sat in a huddle at the kitchen table, pouring over these photos and reminicing.  We came to a photo of a 4-year-old me and the life-size doll.  My sister lowered her voice, leaned in close to my face, and she said.... "Did you ever see her move?"

Patti PlayPal 1959 ~ everything is identical to my doll, except the hair, which was more auburn, straight, and to the shoulders.