Like the MamaLand Empire!

Have you Liked the AliyahLand adventure?
      ...and sign up for weekly aliyah tips by email (it's free).

Things that are weird in Israel #11: Defa Lucy (and her partisan friends)

image

Ah, the sweet chirp of little girls everywhere… “Want to come over and play Defa Lucies?”

Huh?

What the heck is Defa Lucy?

Oh ho.  If you have not met Defa Lucy yet, you are in for a treat. 

Defa Lucy, and Barbara, and all her other oddly-named frilly pink compatriots, are Israel’s cheap shekel-store answer to Barbie (tm).

Caution.  One of the dolls following is having a wardrobe malfunction.  #nsfw

DSC_0009  DSC_0011

I’m sure they have dolls like these in Canada, where I probably just walked right past them.  But they probably aren’t labelled in the World’s Most Hilarious English.

Like this box, which proclaims, “Defa Lucy has a pure face, and a couple of attractiv eyes!”

image

“A couple.”  Like she just grabs them and pops in however many she wants on her way out the door.

The word happy comes up a lot.

image image

image 

I really never thought I’d see those two words together… one imagines something more like this:

image

Despite all the happiness everywhere we looked, we almost made it unscathed out of the department… until Naomi Rivka spotted Defa Lucy, special, limited, 40-shekel, “Feeling Mother” edition. 

image

An actual really truly PREGNANT Defa Lucy.

DSC_0012

Yes, “the beautiful Lucy has her baby at last!”

image

Not only is the PREGNANT Defa Lucy pure of face, with “a couple of attractiv eyes,” she comes with a couple of scrawny, nearly microscopic babies.  TWINS. 

(Yet another of Naomi Rivka’s Favouritest Things Ever.)

image

Lucy’s pregnancy proceeds through all the natural stages, of course.

Starting with “1 Process.  The beautiful Lucy has her baby at last.”

image

I suppose she has just found out she’s expecting.  I know this is just what I was thinking at that blessed moment:  “I am so nervous but feel very sweet.”  She’s probably never heard of morning sickness.

image 

“2 Process.  Please open the lid in Lucy’s stomach.”  (Ew.)

image

“3 Process.  Please __[drat am I a lousy photographer]__fully!”  I think it means “get the babies out, any way you can.”  Just like in real life.

image

And finally, “4 Process.  Please make it the same to Lucy’s stomach!”

image

I know that’s exactly like how I had all my babies. 

And since I had my belly-button surgery, that’s pretty much what my midsection looks like, too.

But the best is yet to come.  Because… wait for it… now that Babies are here, Defa Lucy trades that dowdy maternity smock for racy jeans, a purse, and a halter top, shrieking “I feel ok!!!”

image

Not only does she feel okay, but “Lucy dresses up” – like a streetwalker – “to buy the milk power for it!”

“It” being her twins.

She didn’t need the purse while she was pregnant, of course, because she was too busy staying home barefoot.

DSC_0014     

Oh, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.  How low you have sunk.

What a delightful role model you are for all of our young girls.

It was a hard shlep to get Naomi Rivka out of this section of the store.  A shlep not made much easier by my insistence on stopping to ogle and photograph every inch of the journey.

It’s not just girls who get the cheesy cheap knock-offs here, by the way. 

On our way out of the Defa Lucy section, I spotted this Disney / Cars / Lego type contraption.

image

Somebody actually seems to have tried very hard to capture the spirit of the real logo:

image vs  image

I’m just glad GZ wasn’t with me. 

It was hard enough tearing Naomi Rivka away from Defa Lucy without a wailing kid screaming because he can’t have a 50-shekel knock-off Lightning McQueen.

Ah, Israel.  You may not speak great English… but the English you do speak is oftentimes hilarious.  Don’t go changin’.  Not that you would.  Because, you know; you’re Israel.  And we love you just the way you are.  We’re all just one pure, happy, feeling, partisan, family. 

And I feel ok!!! about that.

Tzivia / צִיבְיָה


3 comments:

  1. Hysterical, but this is almost definitely English packaging from the far East, and not from Israel.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Yael - thanks. I just call it as I see it.

    @Anonymous - a few people pointed this out on facebook, and it's true. On the other hand, back in Canada, or any other English mother-tongue country, there probably wouldn't be an entire toy section of the store dedicated to this kind of typo-ridden cheapo ripoff toy. For various reasons, including the cost of importing the real thing and the lack of good English, this packaging is way more mainstream here... where in Canada, they'd be cheesy Dollarama toys, probably not considered suitable for a major gift.

    Thanks for stopping by!

    ReplyDelete

I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Google