CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: HELLO, DOLLY: BARBIE GETS HER REVENGE IN THE LONG RUN

Every now and then when you're watching TV or reading a magazine or a newspaper, you stumble across an item that lets you know some now-discarded relic of your childhood is worth lots and lots of money.

Anyone whoever had a Barbie and buried her in the backyard, shaved her head or gave her away knows the feeling.

That piece of cheap plastic you used to try to feed to the dog is now worth thousands of dollars as long as it's in pristine condition with all its parts, decals and accessories.

Oh, and let's not forget the original packaging.

All those dolls I killed off in imaginary typhoid epidemics could now buy me a house. Considering how well I remember most of them, you'd think I would have taken better care of them.

A co-worker was reminiscing about the Velvet doll she had as a little girl.

I had Velvet's sister doll, Chrissie. Chrissie and Velvet were pretty standard plastic girl-dolls, but the gimmick was this: You could wind their hair up or down to make it shorter or longer. You pulled a hank of hair from the doll's scalp and it kept stretching, or you cranked it back in via a little plastic knob on the doll's back.

I don't remember what happened to Chrissie. She probably got given to Goodwill when I got tired of her.

If I didn't cut all her hair off. I tended to do that to my dolls. It's probably a warning sign of something, but at least I never set anything on fire.

I also had the little ballerina doll with the pink dress and plastic crown. You posed her arms and legs and pressed on the crown, and she spun around.

And I had a doll named Saucy or Sassy who changed expressions when you cranked her arm up and down. She could smile or cry or look sleepy or sad.

And at night, when she sat on the shelf with the other dolls and the moonlight cast strange shadows on her face, she had this great psycho-axe murderer expression that led me to believe she and the other dolls were conspiring against me.

Saucy/Sassy quickly wound up at the bottom of the toy box. I think that doll was a precursor to Chuckie.

Batteries and Prozac not included.

Actually, it's a shame Saucy/Sassy was abandoned, considering how hard I begged my parents for her.

I asked for her for Christmas, but because every other little girl in the Western hemisphere had made the same request, I actually got her a few days late.

"We ran into Santa at the store," Pop said. "He said he's sorry, but he ran out of these and was making some late deliveries."

She certainly looked normal enough when Mom and Pop brought her home.

But we learned.

Like most little girls, I loved my dolls to pieces -- sometimes literally -- until something better came along. Then Dolly A got tossed into the discard pile to make room for Dolly B.

It's disconcerting to realize that discard pile was really a gold mine, had Dollys A through Z not been so well used.

It's not just dolls that are worth fortunes. All the detritus of Baby Boomers' collective childhood, from Lone Ranger lunch boxes to David Cassidy memorabilia, now carries a hefty price tag.

Maybe we refuse on some level to grow up. Maybe we're clinging nostalgically to the good old days.

Maybe it's Barbie's final revenge.

Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.