Went shopping with my wife Saturday for our granddaughter Asia's birthday presents. I didn't go along for the shopping for birthday clothes part. I learned long ago that when women go shopping for clothes, it can be an all-day excursion.

Besides, little girls need "cute outfits," and I don't know what a "cute outfit" looks like. I know what a cute baby or a cute girl looks like, but I wouldn't know a "cute outfit" if it was hanging on a rack, staring me in the face.

Now I know what "cool" looks like and what "bad" looks like. I know "cool" looks like a 1969 Rally Sport Camaro. And I know "bad" looks like a Big Dog custom chopper. But I don't know a cool, cute or bad outfit.

I told my wife to come get me when she went toy shopping. I figured that would give me the chance to sneak a peek at the Transformer cars and other cool boy toys while we shopped for dolls.

I liked this life-sized "Bride of Chucky" doll.

"It's too violent," my wife, Deanna, said.

"What? It doesn't do anything, so how could it be violent?" I corrected her.

"It's just not appropriate for a little girl," she answered.

I picked up a doll from the movie "Alien."

"How's this?" I beamed.

"What's the matter with you? She's a girl," my wife said.

"Well, she likes scary movies," I shrugged.

My wife then dragged me over to an aisle with the so-called normal dolls. That's like visiting a doll infirmary.

Somebody somewhere got the bright idea that it might be fun to play with a sick baby and make money from it. Normal, when it comes to dolls, means the ones who cry, aren't potty trained, and get sick.

The more ailments, the more expensive the doll.

The doll who just drinks and wets costs about $20. One who wets, cries, throws up, has diarrhea and needs constant feeding will set you back about $50.

There's even a doll that grows teeth and gets a fever. And another one that comes with its own toilet. That's because the poor thing has diarrhea so bad the play food you feed it goes right through it, undigested.

I read somewhere that play doll food is made from sorbitol, a sugar substitute widely believed to cause irritable bowel syndrome. So if a little girl decided to share a meal with her dolly, mommy might have to play along, too.

It's the do-nothing, healthily catatonic dolls that cost $10 or less.

I'm not sure if caring for colicky dolls trains young girls on how to be good mothers or if it gives them early lessons on the high costs of health insurance.

We finally ended up buying the sickest doll in the store. A doll that pooped, threw up, cried, ran a constant fever, had ADHD and Tourette's Syndrome. It threw up and pooped in the car on the way home. When Asia got the doll, she started playing with it right away. She and my wife fed "Madison" her play baby food right on the dining room table. A few seconds later and as advertised on the box, "Madison" had a soiled diaper.

Asia then put "Madison" to bed and played on the computer the rest of the evening.

Alonzo Weston can be reached at alonzow@npgco.com.